Arms-Commander

XXXVI

Saryn woke just after first light, cold, stiff, and sore. Her head still throbbed, if faintly, and her uniform was damp. The sky was as much gray as green-blue. Thankfully, Klarisa had detailed one of the guards to bring up the coals into a small fire. As she stood close to the flames, Saryn silently thanked the squad leader for the warmth. Three others from fourth squad stood around the fire, none close to the arms-commander.

Although it had not frosted, Saryn suspected that it had been almost that cold. The brisk wind out of the west made the air seem even more chill, though summer was almost upon the Roof of the World. But then, full summer wasn’t all that warm on a mesa top in the heights of the Westhorns. With a west wind, Saryn reflected, they were less likely to get a thunderstorm, but the valley below would be warm by afternoon, possibly almost hot-at least by angel standards, cold as it was before sunrise.

“Ser,” Hoilya ventured, “how long will it be before the Gallosians reach us?”

“I’d guess today. It might be as late as tomorrow.”

“Just as soon they get here,” murmured one of the others. “Colder up here than doing picket duty at the stables…”

Not as cold as it will be if we don’t get more quarters built and get people out of the stables. With that thought, Saryn turned from the fire to look down-slope at a rider she had just sensed, a guard pushing her mount as much as possible. That urgency suggested the guard bore news of Arthanos. Saryn waited, since the rider could cover the remaining distance far faster than could Saryn.

“…wager she’s going to tell us the Gallosian bastards are on the way…”

Saryn wouldn’t have bet against the guard’s aside.

When the rider finally neared, Saryn stepped away from the fire and walked several yards to meet her. “Greetings.”

“Ser, the Marshal sent me. The Gallosians were less than ten kays from the east end of the valley when they made camp last night. They should reach the valley by late morning or midday. The Marshal requests that you be ready to act on her command by midmorning.”

“Thank you. Once you’ve rested a moment, you can leave your mount and take one of our spares. You can tell the Marshal we will be ready for her command.”

Saryn turned to call for Klarisa, but the squad leader was already hurrying toward Saryn.

“We’re to expect the Gallosians by midmorning. If you’d show the messenger which spare mount she can take to return to the Marshal, and then muster your squad up at the weapons. We need to lower the penetrators and set the fuses.”

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn turned and ran, if carefully, up toward the top of the mesa, then toward the northern edge, stopping when she could see the east end of the valley. The sun was beginning to clear the peaks to the east, and she had to squint to scan the thin line of brown that was the road, but there were no riders in sight, and she didn’t see dust farther to the east. The thunderstorm of the afternoon before hadn’t lasted that long, only enough to dampen the top of the ground, and the Gallosian army would raise some dust.

She doubted that the Gallosians were that close, since most commanders wouldn’t begin a day’s march through mountains in total darkness, and Arthanos would have had to start in darkness to reach the valley by sunrise. Even so, she and fourth squad couldn’t waste time.

Why can’t anything be easy? She shook her head. If they’d already placed the weapons the day before, the storm would have soaked them and the fuses. By avoiding that problem, they faced the difficulty of having to lower and position the penetrators on short notice. That didn’t take into account the various ailments she had from having to protect the weapons from lightning. At least all the ropes and harnesses were ready to go. She took a last look at the eastern end of the valley, still in shadow, then hurried to the weapons cache. The last members of the squad slipped into the formation before the still-covered penetrators as she neared.

“Ser, fourth squad stands ready,” Klarisa reported.

“Good. First, have them move the weapons to the marked staging points on the edges near the crevice. We’ll move them all before we lower any into place.”

“Yes, ser.” Klarisa turned. “Uncover the weapons. Stack the waterproofs. Divona, Hoilya, Shenda, you take the first weapon. Agala, Yulia, and Rheala, you get the second one…”

Saryn walked swiftly toward the third marked location. That was a critical point. She had decided that two of the weapons were necessary there, one on each side of a slight bulge in the crevice wall. Lowering the second one into position on the west side of the bulge would be difficult because some two yards above where Saryn wanted to position the penetrator, the crevice narrowed to a point where it was only a few handspans broader than the weapon. She eased herself to the edge of the crevice and looked down, but it was hard to see in the early light. From what she sensed, no rocks or debris had fallen to block lowering the weapons. She straightened and headed back to the cache. She could carry ropes and harnesses.

By the time Saryn had the ropes and harness for the first two weapons in place, the rest of fourth squad had the weapons in the positions she’d marked with rocks and charcoal grease, and the guards were carrying the remaining ropes and harnesses into position. Saryn took several moments to check the valley. Still no sign of the Gallosians, for which she was grateful.

Once the harnesses were fastened around the weapons, the ropes tied to the harnesses, and all ready to be lowered into place, Saryn had Klarisa gather fourth squad. When everyone was there, she made her speech brief.

“We’re going to lower the two weapons for the third position first, then those on the second, then the fourth, the first, and the fifth and sixth last. I’ll be near the edge, and the squad leader will relay my instructions. Make sure you let the weapons down slowly…very slowly. One guard will have to hold and feed the fuse, and once the weapon is positioned, the ropes will have to be secured to the heavy stakes.” She nodded to Klarisa. “That’s all.”

“You heard the commander. Let’s go.”

Saryn flattened herself on the uneven and rocky surface slightly east of where the guards would lower the weapon. Two guards eased the first of the two heavy penetrators out over the edge of the crevice drop-out, then positioned themselves to feed the thick rope and keep it from being cut by the stone as four guards behind them bore most of the weight of the weapon.

“A little more toward me!” Saryn watched the penetrator creep downward. “Good…a little slower now…hold it! Move it away from me, just a bit…That’s it. Now, ease it down…”

Even though she wasn’t the one lowering the weight and struggling with the ropes, and despite the cool breeze, Saryn was sweating by the time the first penetrator was lowered and secured. The second one took longer, with all the maneuvering around the narrow spaces above where she wanted it placed, but it, too, was in place before that long. The next four weapons were lowered into place and secured relatively quickly, all with the fuses set in place and held by stones until they were ready to be lit off.

With one to go and midmorning approaching, Saryn could definitely see a pall of dust rising from the road leading down into the east end of the valley. “Last one!” she called.

Because the sixth position, the one farthest to the west, was also the narrowest section of the crevice, it took much longer to lower and position the weapon, so much so that Saryn felt it had taken almost as long for that single penetrator as for all the others. So she was surprised, once it was secured with its fuse in position, to discover that, while the dust cloud had almost reached the valley, the Gallosians were not actually in the valley. From the east end of the valley to the section where Ryba had planned for the avalanche to strike was close to three kays, and that meant at least another glass, if not two, before Saryn had to light off the penetrators.

She turned to the squad leader. “We’ve got a glass or so. Have the squad pack up and have everything ready to go. We’ll likely have to leave quickly once we’re done.”

“Yes, ser.” Klarisa hurried off.

Saryn checked the small leather bag that held the striker and tinder and tied it shut. She fingered the smooth splinters of fatwood in her riding jacket, now open to the breeze, just to reassure herself that they were there. Then she blotted her forehead and turned from where she stood on the eastern end of the mesa to see if she could see the Westwind forces, but the road through the middle of the valley still looked clear. For a time, she watched, first checking the western end of the valley, then the eastern one. The western end seemed empty, but all that meant was that Ryba had her forces concealed, most likely in the forest north of the road. When exactly would Ryba bring the guards out of hiding and spring her defense to halt the Gallosian advance and force the Gallosians into a more concentrated formation?

“Everything’s set for us to ride out, ser,” said Klarisa from behind Saryn. “Do you see any of ours?”

“Not yet.” Saryn squinted, then nodded. “Wait a moment. I can see their advance squad. It’s about half a kay into the valley.”

“You think the Marshal will try to pick them all off? So that no one gets back?”

“I’d guess so, but she didn’t tell me what she plans.” Saryn tried to moisten her lips, but her mouth was dry. “I’d better get some water. We could be waiting here for a while.”

“I’ll send one of the guards to get your water bottle.”

“That might be best. Thank you.”

For the next while, Saryn continued to watch the road, but the lead Gallosian squad rode onward, without opposition. Behind them, the first companies of the vanguard began to emerge from the wide pass. They did not stop, but continued along the road after the advance squad. Saryn checked the sky, but it remained a clear green-blue, with no sign of clouds and a steady brisk wind out of the southwest.

“Ser…your water bottle.”

Saryn turned and took the bottle from the guard. “Thank you, Rheala.”

“My pleasure, ser.” After a moment, the guard asked, “How long will it be?”

Saryn shrugged. “It could be a glass, but it’s more likely to be two or three.”

“It doesn’t take that long. You can see their lead squad is almost in the middle.”

“No…but the Marshal will want all of the Gallosians, or as many of them as possible, in the middle of the valley before we strike. That will take longer. Once they discover we have guards there, and intend to make a stand, they might even stand down to rest their men. They might even wait an entire day.”

“Would they wait to attack at dark?”

“That’s unlikely. We’re better in the dark, and Arthanos knows that. He could wait until tomorrow, though. We’ll just have to see.”

From her vantage point on the mesa, Saryn could make out several squads of Westwind guards emerging from the forest to the north of the road and swinging in behind the Gallosian advance squad. Then another squad rode out from the woods about half a kay in front of the Gallosians. While Saryn was too far away to see the details, several Gallosians toppled from their mounts. That had to be a result of Westwind archers. Several more Gallosians fell while the advance squad seemed to mill around. Then the remaining Gallosians turned back toward the main force-only to encounter more arrows and a charge from the force behind them.

Before all that long, the section of the road between the main Gallosian force and the hill that Ryba had pointed out to Saryn again appeared empty, with the dead and wounded dragged out of sight and the captured mounts led off. The Westwind forces were mustering on the west side of a rise in the road that was just high enough, Saryn judged, to keep them concealed from the oncoming Gallosian vanguard.

Saryn took several swallows from her water bottle and kept watching, with most of fourth squad circled loosely around her.

Almost a glass passed. All of the main Gallosian force was now in the valley, and the two full vanguard companies were within half a kay of the concealed Westwind force.

Whether the vanguard had scouts out, or sharp eyes, someone had clearly noticed something, because the Gallosians moved into an attack formation and simply kept riding toward the Westwind forces. Saryn didn’t understand that strategy, unless Arthanos had calculated just how many Westwind women there were, and unless he felt that without the great male mage Nylan, Ryba was simply posturing. What ever the reasoning, it was clear that the overall strategy was simply to keep attacking, beginning with the vanguard, until the force of numbers destroyed Westwind.

For the vanguard, that strategy was largely suicidal. After weathering a hail of targeted arrows, less than half the vanguard even closed with the Westwind companies, and many of those armsmen might have been wounded. In little more than half a glass, scattered handfuls of Gallosians were fleeing eastward, and the rest were dead or otherwise out of combat.

Within moments, a set of wagons appeared, moving forward of the Westwind positions, where guards began placing frameworks across the road and in a semicircle around the crest of the valley road. Saryn continued to watch as the Westwind guards stood down, remaining in a loose formation visible for at least a kay to the east. All the time, the main body of the Gallosian forces continued westward, with cavalry leading the way, followed by marching armsmen, with another set of cavalry troopers behind. In the rear came close to twoscore supply wagons.

As noon came…and went…the Gallosians kept moving toward the Westwind defenses. Once they were within clear sight, they halted, then reformed, with the foot moving to the front and taking the road and some distance on each side of it, and the cavalry flanking the foot, if with the larger portion on the open south side.

Ryba had either judged Arthanos correctly-or her visions had been accurate in regard to the Gallosian strategy. Arthanos was not even attempting finesse. He knew how few the Westwind guards were and intended to overwhelm them by sheer force of numbers.

Then…a flash of chaos flared across the Westwind pike line, and flames and ashes rose. When the flames died away, and the smoke and ashes had been blown clear, a large gap appeared in the framework of pikes. The Gallosian forces continued to advance, and a second chaosbolt transformed another section of the wooden piles into flame, ashes, and charcoal.

“They’ve got mages, ser,” offered Klarisa, her voice worried.

Saryn nodded. “Let’s hope they don’t have too many.” Arthanos had at least one white mage. That was why he was so confident. The mage-or mages-had to have determined that there were no mages among the Westwind fighters. And there were not, because, while Istril and Siret were in the valley, they were being held back for healing afterward. There was no point in wasting either in battle, because at most they could kill a single Gallosian, and then they’d be useless as healers for some time. While Saryn had some abilities along those lines, she’d certainly never faced a chaos-wielder, and she was kays away from the battle.

“How long now, ser?” asked the squad leader.

“I’d guess another quarter to half glass, but it depends on how fast the Gallosians move.” And when Ryba signals. Saryn glanced toward the hillock that Ryba had pointed out. While she could make out riders and mounts there, no one was signaling, not that Saryn expected a signal yet. The rear of the Gallosian forces was not yet far enough into the valley, and the cavalry and the footmen at the front had not yet even reached the smoldering and useless wooden pikes.

Ryba couldn’t have foreseen the mages. She wouldn’t have wasted the effort to build the pike frameworks, ruses or not. Saryn frowned. Or would she?

Ryba did not order a charge, and the mounted guards remained shielded by the crest of the hill-for the moment.

Saryn could see that Ryba had ordered the archers to fire again, because some of the cavalry fell, and there were places in the Gallosian lines where the advance slowed. Then, still shielded by the hill, the Westwind guards wheeled and began to ride to the southwest, directly toward the hillock from which the signal was supposed to come. The Gallosians continued to advance along the wide front, as if no one had noticed anything at all.

The cavalry on the meadows to the south of the road began to move more rapidly. That made sense, because they were higher and were the first to see the Westwind withdrawal. The lines of the Gallosian mounted forces became even more ragged, while the Westwind guards rode up the hillock and re-dressed their lines-in the staggered fashion that would allow them to fire shafts downhill at the attackers.

How long before Ryba signaled? Saryn glanced to the east end of the valley. Most of the armsmen in the main body of the Gallosian forces were well within where the avalanche would sweep-if Ryba’s visions were right…if Saryn’s judgments on where to place the weapons happened to be accurate…if she had calculated the fuse burn times correctly…

So many ifs…

The Gallosian cavalry hadn’t reached the foot of the hill that held the Westwind contingent…not yet. Ryba hadn’t signaled. How long should she wait? Saryn asked herself.

Her eyes focused on the Gallosian forces. Some were clearly being taken down by Westwind shafts, but the losses scarcely slowed the mass of men and mounts pressing toward the base of the hill.

A flash of something flitted past Saryn, and she immediately looked directly to the top of the hillock, concentrating intently. For a time she could see nothing. Then the light flashed past her again, and she realized that Ryba, or whoever was using the mirror, was sweeping the mesa, as if she could not see where Saryn and fourth squad were.

Saryn immediately moved to the fuse on the first penetrator, opened the leather bag, and removed the striker and the tinder. It took several strikes before the tinder caught, but once it did, she immediately slipped one of the fatwood splinters from her jacket and held it over the tinder, waiting until it was burning brightly. Then she lit the first fuse.

“Fourth squad! Back!” she ordered as she stood.

She walked swiftly to the second fuse and lit it, then the third and fourth, close together, and after them, the remaining three. Following her own advice, she moved back from the edge of the mesa and knelt, waiting, hoping that the weapons would work…and work as planned. If not, almost all of the Westwind guards would be overrun and slaughtered-unless they fled…and that would only prolong the eventual outcome…all that if Saryn could not trigger the avalanche necessary to wipe out most of the Gallosians.

She could sense the running reddish chaos of the fuses, and all felt as though they were burning at almost the same rate, and that they would trigger the penetrators at close to the same moment. Just before the fuses burned down to the penetrator casings, Saryn found herself holding her breath.

Whummmp! Whump! Whump!..

The entire mesa seemed to rock with the force of the explosions, but that was only the sound, Saryn realized, and all she felt was the slightest tremor from the stone beneath her feet. Small fragments of rock pelted down on and around her, and reddish dust puffed up from the north side of the mesa. A faint rumbling growled away from her, then subsided.

Saryn could sense that most of the overhang remained in place, although some of the stone had fragmented away.

Now what?

She had no more explosives, not to speak of, and no more penetrators in which to place them, and certainly not enough time to do either. But she had to do something. She had to.

She didn’t even look into the valley. There was no time for that. She walked quickly to the edge of the crevice, just opposite the largest bulge in the overhang, stopping just a yard or so back from the break in the stone. She tried to feel the junctures of order and chaos. Four of them were gone-the ones targeted by the first, fourth, fifth, and sixth penetrators. The second juncture was there, but so weak that it was more like a tangle of strands of order and chaos.

Saryn had no idea how to break the bonds holding the mass of rock to the mesa, but she had to find a way…and quickly. She’d changed the flow of the order-lines around the penetrators to protect them from the lightning. Could she change the flows around the junctures so that the order and chaos didn’t intertwine?

She immediately reached out with her senses to the weaker juncture and began to ease the dark gray strands away from the pinkish gray ones. The effort was more like trying to move water with a rake or fan air with a small leafless branch…or part hair with a toothless comb.

Still, after a moment, the weaker tangle separated, but the strands immediately reformed-flowing around the single remaining juncture, which began to vibrate. Saryn turned her efforts to the remaining juncture, pressing harder, smoothing, parting the currents, or the strands, edging the flows away from each other, and yet, as she did, she realized that the separate flows became stronger, as if parallel flows of order and of chaos were stronger. As each dark strand separated from what seemed to be its complementary pinkish gray one, Saryn could sense a growing reddish white ball of chaos growing around the disintegrating juncture, yet somehow contained-if barely-by a ball of grayish order.

As the last strand flowed away, Saryn could feel the chaos flaring toward an intense whitish red…and she instinctively flattened herself on the stone, yelling, “Down! Everyone! Get down!”

The explosion that followed shook the entire mesa, and was so massive and loud that Saryn heard nothing at all. Just silence, and pressure.

Then a second blow hammered her into the rock, and her skull felt like it was being split in half. At the same time, rock fragments pelted down and kept pelting down. Although her eyes were closed, Saryn felt as though scores of invisible needles were jabbing through them and into her brain.

Then…she felt nothing.

Dampness on her face brought her back.

“Ser…ser…”

Someone was pressing a damp cloth across her forehead, and she was lying on her back.

“I’m…all right.” She wasn’t. Not exactly. Her head was splitting, far worse than when she had tried to manipulate where the lightning struck, and her eyes were tearing so badly that she could see almost nothing but blurred colors and figures.

Slowly, she sat up. “It broke loose, didn’t it?” She looked at the guard she thought was Klarisa.

“Yes, ser.”

Saryn struggled to her feet. Even without her numbed senses, she could feel the fear in the squad leader. She blotted her eyes. After several moments, she could see, if intermittently, since her vision blanked out with each unseen hammerblow on her skull, but she could tell the large section of the mesa was gone. Where the crevice had been was the mesa’s edge.

Klarisa looked at Saryn, then down at the valley.

Saryn turned. The entire middle section was shrouded in brown-and-gray dust.

Shrouded…a good word.

“Ser…what did you do?” the squad leader finally asked.

“What had to be done.” Saryn looked down into the slowly clearing dust, watching as the higher ground of the hillock finally emerged. While it was surrounded by tumbled rock, stone, and earth, fighting continued on the slopes, where at least a company of the Gallosian cavalry had managed to ride high enough to avoid being swept away by the tide of rock and stone.

Saryn felt helpless, but there was nothing else she could do, only watch. Even if she had been down in the valley, her head throbbed so much that she knew she wouldn’t have been any good in a battle, or not much. Had Ryba guessed that? Saryn frowned. That couldn’t be, because if Saryn hadn’t had to use her skills to help the penetrators, she wouldn’t have had the headache…but then most of Arthanos’s army would have escaped.

The end of the fighting did not last that long, endless as it seemed to Saryn, and, finally, Saryn could see a few Gallosians-both mounted and on foot-scrambling onto the rocks below the hillock, trying to escape the remaining guards. She turned her head away, not really wanting to think about the casualties-on either side.

“Ser? It looks like the Marshal won…didn’t she?” asked Klarisa.

“We survived…and they didn’t.” For now.

Would it always be like that? Winning by destroying massive forces and taking huge losses in the process? Why, when everyone would have been better off without such battles?

Abruptly, she looked back toward the easternmost part of the valley-and saw nothing. As her vision returned, she made out a company of Westwind guards emerging from the forest on the northern side of the road and bearing down on the ten or so supply wagons that had not been engulfed in earth and rock. The remaining Gallosians were scattering.

“Klarisa, we need to mount up and head down there. We can’t do any more here, and they’ll need us.” Saryn walked back down to the upper camp and her mount, without an answer to her questions.