Cyador’s Heirs

LXIII

The air is still, heavy, and acrid, with the smell of ashes and smoke everywhere, when Lerial struggles awake sometime after dawn but before sunrise on twoday morning to the sound of barked commands, wagons, and horses. He pulls on his boots and as much as staggers to his feet as stands. He is not dizzy, but he does feel unsteady as he dons his visor cap and straightens his riding jacket, then steps out of the tent, aware that his eyes are watering slightly from the acrid smoke.

He glances around, seeing rankers seemingly hurrying everywhere.

“Strike that tent! Now! Majer says we have to be out of here in less than a glass.”

“That long? Burned out the woods on both sides of the road gates…”

“Takes longer when you got that many troopers…”

As Lerial hears those words, two other rankers hurry up, the second leading his gelding, already saddled. The first hands him a water bottle and a small pouch. “These are from the healer, ser.”

“Here’s your mount, ser. Majer requests you join him.” The second ranker points. “He’s by the road over there.”

“Thank you.” Lerial eases the pouch into his jacket and slips the water bottle into the saddle holder. Then, he gathers himself together and climbs into the saddle, the difficulty he has underscoring just how weak he is. He guides the gelding in the direction of the majer, discovering as he nears Altyrn, mounted beside another rider, that he has regained some ability to order-sense, if but to a distance of perhaps ten yards. The lack of range in order-sensing and the weakness in his legs prompt him to lift the water bottle and take a long swallow of the tart and bitter greenberry liquid.

He replaces the water bottle and then takes out the pouch, which, he discovers, contains several hard biscuits. He puts one in his mouth, gingerly, and discovers that, while neither bitter nor tart, it has little taste at all. He eats the first biscuit in moments and then the next, replacing the pouch in his jacket as he reins up beside Altyrn, who is talking to Juist.

“… those road traps and makeshift caltrops ready to put in place, ser, once we engage them…”

“Then take up that position and look like you’re going to hold it, but if they start to throw fireballs, fall back immediately behind the log barricade. Have your archers loft shafts into their rear. That’s where the white wizards are. Ease back as quickly as you can.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Go!”

Lerial has only the vaguest idea of what Altyrn has just ordered, except that it sounds like a ploy of some sort. “You’re trying to lure them into something?”

“That comes later. I’m hoping that they’ll drop fireballs into some bitumen and oil that will surround a mass of their armsmen on three sides.”

“If they don’t?”

“Then Juist will likely lose the rankers who will have to use torches.” Altyrn’s voice is steady, as if he were discussing the worms that made shimmercloth fibers. He turns his mount. “Just stay with me and watch. Don’t ask any questions until I tell you that you can.”

“Yes, ser.” The only wagon that Lerial can see around the area where second company had been posted creaks by him, leaving the area with little but flattened grass where tents had been and almost empty of Lancers-except for third company, forming up across the road. To the south, in the direction of the apparently still-intact but useless road gates, Lerial can hear horn signals, but he can sense nothing more than a few yards away.

“We need to move back. This way,” commands the majer, turning his horse.

Lerial follows Altyrn along the shoulder of the road, through and past another wider clearing, beyond which the trees are spaced more widely. Some hundred yards later, the majer reins up behind a pair of trees with wide trunks that almost touch. He positions himself so that he can look through the gap at the road that leads to where the roadgates are … not that they have done much more than delay the Meroweyans. “Stay behind me.”

Third company rides past, and the area where the Verdyn forces had been for the past eightday or so appears empty. For a good quarter glass, nothing seems to move, not even the air, and there are no clouds in the sky that is slowly turning from gray to green-blue as the sun begins to rise, not that Lerial can see it yet, not from within the confines of the Verd forest.

He shifts his weight in the saddle and takes several more swallows of the greenberry liquid, admitting wordlessly that he does feel better, and slightly stronger, as a result of drinking it and eating the biscuits. He shifts in the saddle again.

“Watch,” orders Altyrn quietly. “Say nothing.”

From the south come sounds, a muted series of vibrations. Lerial stands in his stirrups, so that he can look over Altyrn’s head and through the opening between the two tree trunks. He can make out what at first looks to be a huge brownish worm with spikes jutting out and walking sideways on many legs, but then realizes it is a Meroweyan shieldwall some fifty yards wide, centered on the road and moving toward the majer and him. Behind the shieldmen are pikemen, their pikes leveled to discourage a mounted attack. Behind the pikes and shields are footmen, although Lerial can only see their heads, while behind each end of the formation are mounted troopers.

When the shieldmen are about a hundred yards from the majer and Lerial, a wall of flame races from somewhere well to the sides of the road and under the boots of the shieldmen. Several yell, and one man staggers out of formation, his uniform in flames … and then another … and another. As the shieldmen run forward to keep from getting burned, the pikemen are left at least partly exposed to the arrows that come from all sides. Then two squads of Verdyn Lancers-one from the east, and one from the west-charge the pikemen.

The mounted troopers behind the ends of the line of pikemen move forward, but by the time they get around the chaos of wounded pikemen and disorganized shieldmen, both squads have turned and vanished back into the trees.

“Time to withdraw!” snaps Altyrn, turning his mount and urging it into a canter along the shoulder of the road.

Lerial follows, wondering where or when Juist’s men will do what he had heard the majer discussing, because what he has just seen does not match what he had heard between the two.

Altyrn does not slow his mount until they have covered almost a kay and entered a larger clearing. Closer to the north side is a log barricade almost eighty yards long and somewhat more than two yards high that straddles the road. The two sides are slightly angled so that the middle is perhaps ten yards forward of the ends. Lerial can see the tips of spears and caps and the like behind the barrier, and slightly less than two squads of riders in formation at each end. Altyrn keeps riding, circling around the east end of the log barricade and into the trees on the northeast end of the clearing. Once there, he turns his mount so that he can see the clearing, but so that he is largely shielded by the trunk of the tree. Lerial follows his example and reins up the gelding beside a nearby tree. Looking back, he can see that most of the figures behind the log barricade are crudely formed of vines and branches or other material with caps or scarves or the like on the “head,” and that the spears and weapons are merely crude poles with carved points. Still, from a distance, they looked real enough. What is real, however, is the small catapult behind the mock force. Three youths, even younger than Lerial or any of the rankers, wait by the catapult. Behind the catapult are two rows of women archers, presumably from third company.

Almost a glass passes before the shieldwall of the Meroweyans enters the south side of the clearing and moves roughly twenty yards into the clearing before a horn sounds, and the shieldwall comes to a halt, while the pikemen ground their pikes, as if expecting an attack.

Lerial cannot see exactly what is happening, and his order senses have not recovered enough for him to determine anything at that distance, either, but he can see movement.

Then, at some signal he does not catch, a flaming ball of fire arches from the catapult behind the log barrier toward the shieldwall, landing on the ground and spraying feeble shards of burning matter. There is no reaction from the Meroweyan forces. Several moments later, another flaming ball arches over the log barricade, and this flaming ball catches the top of one of the outsized shields, and burning goo splashes on the shield-bearer, who drops his shield and rolls in the grass trying to smother the flames burning his sleeves and chest.

Then a third ball of flame hits another shield-bearer.

The Meroweyan horn sounds, and the pikes level. The shieldwall marches forward, solid step by solid step. Another flaming ball arches into the Meroweyan force, this time into the armed footmen behind the shields.

At that, a chaos-bolt arcs from the rear of the Meroweyan formation toward the catapult, but misses to one side, incinerating three stick dummies. Another chaos-bolt follows. The fireballs are smaller than the ones Lerial has diverted, and he wonders if that is because the white wizards are tired as well … or because they have been ordered to husband their chaos strength. The youths sprint away. Two escape. The third, trailing by a yard or so, is enveloped in flame.

With that, the archers loft shafts toward the rear of the Meroweyan troopers.

In response, the mounted armsmen race from each end of the Meroweyan formation toward the small squads of Verdyn Lancers flanking the ends of the log barricade. The Lancers wheel and gallop behind the barricade and then onto the road. As they pass, the archers also turn and run.

Seeing the fleeing Verdyn forces, the Meroweyan riders urge their mounts onward also around the ends of the log barricade. Lerial sees a ranker with a torch running forward, but the Meroweyans don’t seem to see him-or are more interested in running down the women archers.

Lerial wonders if something has gone wrong, despite Altyrn’s plans … and why the archers don’t sprint for the trees. Then he sees the Lancers slow and turn.

At that moment, fire erupts, seemingly from the ground, creating a semicircle with each end touching the log barricade, enclosing almost two companies of riders. In addition, after a few moments, the log barricade also begins to burn. Startled by the sudden flame and heat, more than a few of the Meroweyan mounts either rear or balk, but perhaps a squad of riders either crosses the line of flame before it is at full strength or bursts through it anyway, only to find that the archers have turned and begin to loose shafts at those riders. The three remaining squads from third company charge back at the surviving Meroweyan riders. In a matter of moments, none of the less than a score of the attacking riders who escaped the flames remain alive or unwounded. The archers, still carrying their bows, sprint toward the edge of the woods, where, Lerial sees, their mounts are tethered.

“Third company! Withdraw now!” shouts Juist.

“That means us,” says Altyrn.

Now? Then Lerial sees that the flames are dying away, even those on the log barricade, and realizes that before long there will be no flame left and no barrier to the companies of armed riders on the other side of those dying flames … or the even more riders and footmen on the south side of the barrier. He also sees that two of the third company mounts are riderless and one archer lies motionless on the road, her neck at an odd angle.

Lerial has to jolt himself into motion to turn the gelding and follow Altyrn. They ride for almost a kay before he and the majer reach a wide place in the road where third company has reformed, with Juist positioned at its head.

“Ser!” announces Juist. “Third company stands ready.”

“Casualties?” asks Altyrn.

“Two dead, and the one boy who manned the catapult. Two wounded, neither seriously.”

Altyrn nods. “Well executed, Undercaptain. Very well executed.”

Lerial has to agree, wondering if he will ever be able to do that well, or do that well without using order-chaos skills.

“We’ll put back to … Nevnarnia and hold there,” the majer adds.

Lerial can sense that the majer has to struggle to remember the name of the hamlet that lies to the north of them on the road into Vernheln … and eventually to Verdell.

Altyrn gestures to Lerial, then turns his mount, as does Lerial. They ride northward along the road for a time before the majer speaks. “They’ll make a good five kays today. With what we’ve already done and the various traps the locals are setting, we’ll cost them another company, or two, with luck.”

“Will they keep burning the Verd, do you think?” asks Lerial.

“Not now. There’s no point in it. They’ve breached the barriers, and a runaway fire could turn on them. Once they realize they’ve lost … that’s the time for worry.”

Once they realize they’ve lost…? Lerial almost shakes his head. While the majer’s hastily trained Lancers and archers might have removed five or six companies-and maybe three white wizards, just possibly four-there are still something like thirty or thirty-five companies riding into Vernheln.