Octobers Baby

FIFTEEN: Baxendala

i) The site

Baxendala was a prosperous town of two thousand twenty-five miles west of Maisak. Its prosperity was due to its being the last or first chance for commerical vices for the caravans. The mountain passage was long and trying. Ragnarson had chosen to fight there because of topography.

The townsite had once marked the western limit of the huge glacier that had cut the pass. The valley, that became the Gap, there narrowed to a two-mile-wide, steep-sided canyon, the floor of which, near the town, was piled with glacial leavings.

Baxendala itself was built against the north flank of a sugarloaf hill half a mile wide, two long, and two hundred feet high, astride a low ridge that ran to the flank of Seidentop, a steep, brush-wooly mountain constricting the north wall of the canyon. The River Ebeler ran around the south side of the loaf where the valley, in a long, lazy curve, had been dug a bit deeper, and, because of barriers a dozen miles farther west, had formed a shallow marsh three-quarters of a mile wide. The marsh lay hard against both the sugarloaf and the steep southern wall of the valley. A narrow strip of brushy, firm ground ran below the southern face. It could be easily held by a small force.

Atop the sugarloaf, commanding a good eastern view, stood a small fortress, Karak Strabger. From it Ragnarson could follow every detail of battle. By anchoring his flanks on Seidentop and Baxendala, along the ridge, he could defend a space little more than half a mile wide. There was no more defensible site to the west, and but one equaling it farther east. And Sir Andvbur, having fought there last autumn, knew that ground better than he.

Ragnarson descended on the town two weeks after the night of the demon. The Strabger family fled so hurriedly they left breakfast half-cooked in the castle kitchen. The rebel forces were training farther east, near the snow line. Three days after Bragi's arrival an attempt was made to dislodge him. Baron Berlich led the rebel knights into another Lieneke. His attack collapsed under a shower of Itaskian arrows. Berlich himself was slain.

The survivors, to Ragnarson's dismay, suffered an attack of rationality. When they selected a new com­mander they chose the man he believed most dangerous, Sir Andvbur Kimberlin.

Kimberlin opted for Fabian tactics. He took up a defensive position at the site of his previous year's battle. His patrols tried to lure Ragnarson into attack. Bragi ignored them.

Though Kimberlin's force, at eight thousand, was the largest Ragnarson had yet faced, he was more concerned with the sorcery-rich army the Captal would bring out of Maisak.

Bragi waited, skirmished, fortified, scouted, hus­banded his resources. He constantly reminded his officers of the need to stand firm here. To, if necessary, endure the heaviest casualties. The enemy would be stopped at Baxendala, or not at all. The west depended on them. There would be no stopping Shinsan if this stand failed.

ii) The waiting

Ragnarson stood on the parapet of Karak Strabger's lone tower and surveyed the power that was, for the moment, his. He had twenty-five thousand Kaveliners, plus the men he had brought south. In the west, on the horizons and beyond, great clouds of dust hung in the spring haze. Surprising allies were hurrying to join him.

One cloud, on the caravan route, marked Shanight of Anstokin with the regiments raised to invade Volstokin. North of him came Jostrand of Volstokin and three thousand puzzled veterans of Lake Berberich and Vodicka's defeat. In Heidershied, rushing in forty-mile marches, was Prince Raithel of Altea, a hard-driving old warrior who had won glory and honor during the wars. Ragnarson hoped Raithel would arrive in time. His ten thousand were the best soldiers in the Lesser Kingdoms. He had heard there were troops on the move in Tamerice and Ruderin and kingdoms farther away.

This curdling of the Lesser Kingdoms into a one-faced force with chin thrust belligerently eastward had begun the night of the red demon.

The sudden power and responsibility awed Ragnarson. Princes and kings were coming to be commanded by a man who had been but a farmer a year ago...

There were others who awed him more than Shanight, Jostrand, or Raithel.

Beside the sugarloaf, above Baxendala, stood a dozen tents set off by ropes. One housed his old friend Count Visigodred of Mendalayas, another Haroun's dread (acquaintance, Zindahjira. The denizens of the others he knew only by repute: Keirle the Ancient; Barco Crecelius of Hellin Daimiel; Stojan Dusan from Prost Kamenets; Gromachi, the Egg of God; The Hermit of Ormrebotn; Boershig Abresch from Songer in Ringerike; Klages Dunivin; Serkes Holdgraver of the Fortress of Frozen Fire; and the Thing With Many Eyes, from the shadowed deeps of the Temple of Jiankoplos in Simballawein.

One tent stood alone, as if the others had crowded away. Before it stood a battered Imperial standard. Within lurked the man whose capital-hopping had started so many armies toward Baxendala, whose name frightened children into good behavior and made grown men glance over their shoulders. Varthlokkur.

His appearance guaranteed the gravity of the conflict. The high and the mighty, from Simballawein to Iwa Skolovda, would hold all else in abeyance till they knew what was afoot.

Even the Greyfells party, Ragnarson had heard, had joined the truce.

Ragnarson had mixed feelings about Varthlokkur's presence. The man could, without a doubt, be an asset. But what about old grudges? Varthlokkur owed himself and Mocker.

But Mocker, who had most to fear, was in and out of the wizard's tent constantly, when not hiding from soldiers he had bilked with crooked dice.

Ragnarson smiled weakly. Mocker was incorrigible. A middle-aged adolescent.

He spied signal smoke up the Gap. Heliograph operators bustled about him. He returned to the war room he had set up in the castle's great hall.

While awaiting the report, he asked Kildragon, "How's Rolf?" Preshka had insisted on coming east.

"The same. He'll never heal if he won't take time out." "And the evacuation?" He had been trying to get civilians to leave the area.

"About hit the limit. The rest mean to stay no matter what."

"Guess we've done what we could. Can't force people... Colonel Kiriakos?"

He had surveyed the man's work from the parapet. He and Phiambolos were working hard to complicate Shinsan's attack.

Kiriakos was the sort who, finding a pot of gold, would worry about getting a hernia hauling it away. "Too slow. I won't get done if you don't give me more men." His projects were straining the army already. Trenches, traps, fortifications, cheveaux-de-fris, a pontoon across the marsh a few miles west, and finding raw materials, were devouring hundreds of thousands of man-hours each day. But Kiriakos was a bureaucrat born. There was no project that couldn't be done bigger and better if only he were given more money and men...

Am I getting old? Ragnarson wondered. What happened to my penchant for motion? His cavalry commanders had been asking too. Shinsan's was an army mainly infantry in orientation, with little missile weap­onry. But Sir Andvbur was out there... All he could say was that he felt right fighting positionally.

A Sedlmayrese sergeant came from the tower, drew Bragi aside. "Captain Altenkirk," he whispered, "says he's taken prisoners. The men called Turran and Valther, and a woman. The Captain thinks she's the one you saw at Maisak."

Ragnarson frowned. A windy message for heliograph, susceptible of error. But justified if true. They had captured Mist? How?

"Thank you. Send 'Well done.' And keep it quiet." He retreated to a corner to think. So many possibili­ties ... But he would know the truth when Altenkirk came in.

He would have to take precautions. He headed for the wizards' compound.

iii) Prisoners

Altenkirk had taken no chances. He brought his prisoners in gagged, bound, and blindfolded, unable to twitch, inside the large wicker baskets farmers filled with grain and hung from their rafters to beat the rats and mice. Each was litter-borne by prisoners from Kimberlin's army and surrounded by Marena Dimura ready to destroy baskets and bearers in an instant. Each litter was piled with oil-soaked faggots. Horsemen with torches rode nearby.

In other circumstances Ragnarson would have been amused. "Think you took enough precautions?" he asked.

"I should've killed them," Altenkirk replied. "It's got to be a trick..."

"Maybe. Let's let the witchmen have them."

The baskets were grounded before the sorcerers. Soldiers who could do so absented themselves. Zindah-jira, the Egg of God, and the Thing With Many Eyes failed customary standards of what was human.

"What's the smell?" Ragnarson asked Visigodred, near whom he had positioned himself for his nerve's sake.

"The Thing's project. You'll see."

"Uhn." They had to make everything a mystery. He nodded to Altenkirk. "Turran first."

Altenkirk cautiously pried the lid off a basket. Sorcerers tensed like foxes waiting at a rabbit hole.

But Turran had been confined so long that he needed help getting out. Ragnarson went to the man, removed his gag. He beckoned Visigodred.

To Turran, "I'm sorry. Altenkirk's a cautious man."

"Understand."

"Water," Visigodred said, offering a cup. Turran drained it. While Bragi and a soldier supported Turran, Visigodred rubbed his legs. To Altenkirk the wizard said, "Let the others out. They'll cause no trouble."

There was a stir just before Mist came forth. Ragnarson turned. His eyes met the Queen's. So. She had ignored his advice again, had come to join the final battle. With perfect timing, he thought. Her eyes, on Mist, were hard and jealous.

"All I need," he mumbled, "is for Elana to turn up now."

A long draught of wine gave Turran a little life. He asked for a physician, to examine his brother, then admonished, "I thought we were on the same side." And, after a pause, "She's come over."

Hum and buzz. Sorcerers' heads nodded together. Visigodred, who had a relationship with Mist that seemed almost fatherly, fussed round the woman like a hen.

"Did you ever see such a mantrap?" Ragnarson mumbled to Preshka, who, despite continued ill health, had come to investigate the commotion.

"It's obscene. No woman ought to look like that." Turran gained more life. "They'll be here soon. They started bringing troops through last week."

"Uhn?" Ragnarson's suspicions hadn't died com­pletely. "Let's hear about it."

"We couldn't use the back stairs," he said, after recounting the confrontation in the Captal's library, "so we picked up Brad Red Hand and tried the hallways..." "You joined forces?"

"No choice. O Shing's people would've killed us all. Enemy of my enemy, you know. We picked up Brad and went through the halls to the stairs Derran had used to reach the old man's floor. But it opened in a hall already occupied by O Shing's men. We had to fight through. Valther picked up his wound there. Derran was killed. Kerth, the Captal, and the little girl were captured. Brad tore a muscle in his left arm. We got through, but we couldn't save anybody but ourselves."

"And Mist? She couldn't use a spell or two?" "Colonel, there were six men in that room. Three were Tervola. You know what that means? We tried. We killed the soldiers. She barely handled the sorcerers. But when it settled out, we couldn't carry the wounded. I was lucky to get Valther out. And the child wouldn't leave the old man. If there was anything that could've been done..."

"I wasn't criticizing." He had had to leave people behind too. He knew the spear thrusts of guilt that drove to the heart of one's being.

"We hoped to reach the main gate or the Captal's creatures, but the fight gave O Shing's men time to cut us off. The only escape was the caverns. It may've been my memory or their sorcery, but for a long time we couldn't find a way out. Every passage we took led back to Maisak. Each time we returned something more grim had happened. They tortured Kerth till he told all he knew about Haroun. They enchanted the Captal and girl into being cooperative. They've done the same to the rebel captains. We kept stealing food and trying to find a way out. When they started bringing troops through, I knew I couldn't put off leaving my body anymore. It'd become imperative that I get Mist to you."

"And Brad?"

"They detected the sorcery. Came hunting. His bad shoulder betrayed him. They got him before Mist could drive them off."

"And Mist? Is she a refugee? Does she want help to regain her throne? I won't help her. There's no way I'll do anything to benefit the Dread Empire. I will help destroy it. It's like a poisonous snake. Any good it does is incidental to its deadliness."

"I think," Turran said softly, "that's she's run out of ambition. O Shing's successes have crushed her." He nodded her way. She was fussing over Valther. "There's her subliminatory device."

"Ah?"

"I don't know how long it'll last. Long enough for us to benefit, though."

"I can't ask much more." With great reluctance, Ragnarson took his eyes off Mist, studied the assembled sorcerers. Each indicated he believed Turran. Only Varthlokkur expressed reservations, and those weren't related to Mist's turn of coat.

"Power won't affect this battle's outcome," he said. "The divinations are shadowy, but they suggest its result will depend on the courage and stamina of soldiers, not on any efforts of my ilk." He seemed mildly puzzled.

Varthlokkur knew his business. He was probably right. But Ragnarson was puzzled too. He could not see how, with so much thaumaturgic might moving toward collision, massive destruction could be avoided. "See if you can get this straightened out," he told Preshka, then went to welcome the Queen to Baxendala.

iv) The enemy arrives

Sir Andvbur's rebels came down the canyon like leaves driven by an autumn wind, without organization, whipping this way and that, mixing units inseparably. Before and among them fled bands of Ragnarson's horsemen and Marena Dimura. Signal smokes rose rapidly nearer, climbing toward a cloud of darkness driving down from Maisak like the grasping hand of doom. Sir Andvbur's people pelted against Ragnarson's defenses in such disorder that his own men became mildly infected. He had a brisk afternoon's work keeping order. Night fell without the true enemy appearing. But his campfires, as they sprang into being, were disturbing in their numbers. Ragnarson got little sleep. He stayed up studying a blizzard of conflicting reports.

By morning it had sorted itself out. The Captal and his Kaveliners had moved to Ragnarson's extreme right, beyond the marsh, where Blackfang and Kildragon held the narrows. Sir Andvbur's thousands had taken positions against the flank of Seidentop, facing the mercenary regiments from High Crag. Shinsan held the center, facing Prince Raithel's Altean veterans.

A quarter-mile behind the front line, which was sixteen thousand strong, Ragnarson had drawn up a more numerous but potentially weaker second line. Volstokin he had anchored against Seidentop, in touch with the fortifications and heavy weapons Colonel Phiambolos had installed there. In the center were the Kaveliners, his hand-picked veterans scattered among them as cadre. On the right, their backs against Baxendala, lay Anstokin's army. They maintained close contact with the ramparts and trenches Tuchol Kiriakos had constructed between level ground and Karak Strabger's wall. The main engagement Ragnarson meant to be infantry against infantry, the lines holding while heavy engines on the flanks and bowmen behind the lines decimated the enemy. Only two thousand horsemen, the best, did he allow to retain their animals. These he stationed west of Baxendala, out of view behind the slope running to Seidentop.

Dawn was a creeping thing, a dark tortoise dragging in from the east and never quite seeming to arrive. But gradual visibility came to the valley.

Ragnarson, the Queen, Turran, Mist, Varthlokkur, Colonels Phiambolos and Kiriakos, runners and helio­graph men crowded the top of Karak Strabger's lonely tower. When O Shing's camp became visible, Ragnar-son's heart fell. He beckoned Mist.

Shinsan was in formation already. Mist peered into the morning haze. A small, sharp intake of breath. "Four legions," she said throatily. "He's brought four legions. The Eighth. On the right. His left. The Third. The Sixth. Oh. And I thought Chin mine body and soul." The remaining legion stood in reserve behind Shinsan's center. "The First. The Imperial Standard. The best of the best."

Her knuckles whitened as she squeezed the stone of the battlements.

"The best," she repeated. "And all four at full strength. He's made a fool of me."

Bragi wasn't disappointed. He hadn't expected good news. But he had hoped O Shing would make a smaller showing. "He's here himself?"

She nodded, pointed. "There. Behind the First. You can see the tower. He wants to watch our destruction from a high place."

Ragnarson turned. "Colonel Phiambolos, relay the word to Altenkirk." The engineer departed for Seidentop, "Varthlokkur? You've seen enough?"

The wizard nodded. "We'll begin. But I doubt we'll do any good." He departed. "Colonel Kiriakos?"

The Colonel clicked his heels and half bowed. "Gods be with you, sir." He left to assume command of the castle and sugarloaf. "Turran?"

The man shrugged. "You've done all you could. It's up to the Fates."

"Your Majesty, everything's ready." She nodded coolly, regally. There was the slightest strain between them because, after her journey from Vorgreberg, he had spent the night in battle preparations. "Now we wait." He glanced at O Shing's tower, willing it to begin.

Though he concealed it, he didn't think he had a chance. Not against four legions, nearly twenty-five thousand easterners. With so many O Shing might not commit his auxiliaries...

But he did. At some unseen signal Sir Andvbur threw his full weight against the mercenary regiments, all his people fighting afoot.

"That man," said Turran, "needs hanging. He learns too fast."

The mercenaries, though better fighters, were hard-pressed till Phiambolos's engines found the range.

After an hour, Ragnarson asked Turran, "What's he doing? It's obvious that he can't break through."

"Maybe trying to weaken them for the legions.Or draw them out of line."

Ragnarson glanced toward the mountains. The dark cloud from Maisak was fading. "They'll let us have the sun in our eyes." He had hoped they would overlook that.

Mist interjected, "He's buying time to ready a sorcery."

And Turran, "There goes a wagonload of the Thing's poison." In time Visigodred had admitted that the foul stench from the sorcerers' enclave was caused by their distillation of a drink to be served weary troops on the fighting line. There was little if any magic involved, but the liquor would combine the encouraging effects of alcohol with a drug that staved off exhaustion. Little sorceries like that, Ragnarson thought, might be more important than the ground-shakers.

"Marshal," said the Queen, "you have smoke across the marsh."

Bragi turned. It was Haaken's signal. He allowed himself a small grin. "Good. Runner." A man presented himself. "Tell Sir Farace to cross the pontoon."

A key adjunct to his plans, hastily developed during the night, after the enemy's dispositions had become clear, was developing perfectly. Blackfang and Kildragon had laid a trap. The Captal had been lured in.

"The witchery begins," said Mist. Arm spear-straight, she indicated a mote of pinkish light at the foot of O Shing's tower. "The Gosik of Aubochonagain."Aweand horror filled her voice. "In the flesh. The man's mad! There's no way to control it..."

"Kimberlin's breaking off," said Turran.

Ragnarson had noticed. "This's the critical point," he said, looking down at the still untested Alteans. "Will they hold when they realize what's happening?"

"Back!" Mist snapped. "I need room!" The pink became scarlet flame; from it rose dense red smoke. In moments, within the smoke, an immense horned head with Stygian eyes formed. This thing was no moonscraping monster such as had loomed over the Kapenrungs, but Bragi guessed it would stand a hundred yards tall. It seemed to grow from the earth itself.

Mist stood with arms outstretched and head thrown back, screaming in a tongue so liquid that Ragnarson wasn't sure she was using words. A strong chill wind began to blow, whipping her hair and garments.

He checked his tame sorcerers.

As the Gosik took on awesome solidity, the twelve hurled their counter-weapons. Bolts of lightning. Spears of light. Balls of fire in weird and changing colors. Stenches that enveloped the tower. A misty thing the size of several elephants that coalesced between the armies and trailed bloody slaughter through immobile legions before attaching its hundred tentacles and dozen beaked mouths to one of the Gosik's legs...

Mist brought her hands together sharply. Down the canyon, echoing from wall to wall, ran a deafening, endless peal of thunder. Over the Gosik a diadem of lights appeared, sparks in rainbowed rings racing angrily. The diadem began to fall.

Ragnarson wasn't sure, but from its enclosing circle, it seemed, a nebulous face as ugly as the Gosik's glared down, swelled till all the interior was a gap through which a hungry mouth prepared to feed.

A touch of shadow crossed the parapet. A few hundred feet up, a lonely eagle patrolled, above Mist's unnatural wind, apparently unconcerned with the human follies below. For an instant Bragi envied the bird its freedom and unconcern. Then...

He released a small, sharp gasp. For an instant the eagle flickered and was an eagle no longer. It became a man and winged horse far higher than he had thought, almost above visual discrimination. He turned to ask Turran's opinion.

Turran had missed it. Everyone had. All attention was on the Gosik.

Every magick in the valley had perished.

The Gosik itself came apart like a crumbling brick building, chunks and dusts falling in a rain that masked O Shing's tower. It bellowed louder than Mist's thunder had done.

Turran groaned, clawed at his chest, staggered. Ragnarson stared, thinking it was his heart.

Mist screamed, a cry of pain and deprivation. She fell to her knees, beat her forehead against parapet stone.

"It's gone," Turran groaned. "The Power. It's gone."

The Queen tried to stop Mist. "Help me!" she snapped at the messengers.

Ragnarson leaned over the parapet. His wizards appeared to have gone insane. Several had collapsed. Most were flopping about like men in the throes of the falling sickness. The Thing sped round and round in a tight circle, chasing its own forked tail. Only Varthlokkur seemed unaffected, though he might have been a statue, so still was he as he stared at the Gosik of Aubochon.

Ragnarson looked up again. The eagle slid toward Maisak, to all appearances a raptor going about its business. He frowned. That old man again. Who was he? What? Not a god, but certainly a Power above any other the world knew.

Ragnarson's companions remained unaware of any­thing but the sudden vacuum of sorcery. For Turran and Mist it was a loss beyond description, almost a theft of the soul.

v) Opening round

O Shing wasted no time. The legions moved. High on the Thing's brew and Bragi's quickly spread tale that western sorcery had conquered the eastern, the troops waited with renewed confidence.

Shinsan advanced behind a screen of Sir Andvbur's infantry, the rebels more driven than leading the assault. Theirs was the task of neutralizing the traps. Their casualties were heavy. Ragnarson's bowmen had a tremendous stock of arrows, and easy targets.

Before the lines met, Ragnarson's troops sprang one of their surprises. He had had the Alteans armed with javelins, a tactic unseen since Imperial times. Their shower reassured his troops of the foe's mortality.

"Runner!" Ragnarson snapped. He sent orders to ready the second line.

"So much for being Shinsan's ally," Bragi muttered. Several thousand rebels, between his own and Shinsan's lines, were being cut down by friend and foe.

Bragi's first line held better than he had expected. He blessed the Thing.

The Alteans held the Third. The flanking legions, under merciless bombardment from Phiambolos' and Kiriakos' engines, had increasing difficulty maintaining formation.

The enemy commander sent Sir Andvbur to clear Seidentop. Karak Strabger he would not be able to reach unless the Alteans broke. Kimberlin's men got entangled in nasty little battles in brushy ravines and around Phiambolos' fortifications.

Ragnarson had his heliographers send a message. Altenkirk and a thousand Marena Dimura were hidden on the slopes east of Seidentop. They were to take the rebels and Sixth Legion in the rear. Ragnarson didn't expect them to do more than keep the enemy off balance. What Ragnarson wanted most was to compel O Shing to commit his reserve. The First Legion, waiting patiently before their emperor's tower, would be the key.

The first line wouldn't compel its commitment. The Altean left had begun to waver. He ordered his archers withdrawn behind the second line. He didn't want them lost in a sudden collapse. He then sent messages reminding his second-line commanders that under no circumstances were they to leave their positions to aid the first line.

The Alteans yielded slowly. The enemy wedged open their junction with the mercenaries. Altenkirk attacked. The fighting round Seidentop grew bloody. The Marena Dimura, high on the Thing's brew, refused to be driven off till they had taken terrible casualties. They, too, did better than Ragnarson had expected. They forced Sir Andvbur to abandon his assault. And they gave better than they got. Kimberlin's troops were unable to pursue them. But in the meantime the Alteans had gotten split off the mercenaries. The commander of the Third Legion was ready to roll up both halves of the line.

Ragnarson expected the reserve legion to drive through the gap, against his second line. But no. O Shing held it.

"They're burning the bridge," Turran said from behind him. The man had recovered, though now he seemed a little insubstantial.

Bragi turned. Yes. Smoke rose from the pontoon. Haaken had either lost or won his part of the battle. There would be no knowing which for a long time yet. He wished he had arranged some signal. But he hadn't wanted any false hopes raised or despair set loose.

The mercenary regiments began to crumble. Crowding Seidentop for its supporting fire, they withdrew. Prince Raithel tried to do the same, but had more difficulty. The fighting washed up the foot of the sugarloaf. Kiriakos couldn't give him much support.

Ragnarson glanced at the sun. Only four hours of light left. If Shinsan took too long, the battle would stretch into a second day. For that he wasn't prepared.

Clearly victorious, the legions disengaged, puzzling Ragnarson. Then he understood. O Shing would send the fresh legion against the center of the second line while the third backed off to the reserve position.

For a time the battlefield was clear. Bragi was awed by the carnage. It would be long remembered. There must have been twenty thousand bodies on the field, about evenly distributed. The majority of the enemy fallen were rebels.

Sickening. Ragnarson loathed the toe-to-toe slugfest. But there was no choice. A war of maneuver meant enemy victory.

O Shing allowed the legions an hour's rest. Ragnarson didn't interfere.

Before, the numbers had been slightly in the enemy's favor. This time they would be strongly in his. But his men would be greener, more likely to break.

Two and a half hours till sunset. If they held, but Haaken couldn't carry out his mission, could he put anything together for the morrow?

It began anew. The First Legion drove its silent fury against Kaveliners who outnumbered it three to one. The flanking legions held Anstokin and Volstokin while strong elements of each turned on Seidentop and Karak Strabger.

The Thing's false courage continued to work. The Kaveliners stood and continued believing their com­mander was invincible.

Ragnarson turned away after an hour. Even with the support of the most intense arrow storm Ahring could generate, Shinsan was getting the best of it.

And, redoubt by redoubt, Kiriakos and Phiambolos were being forced to yield their fortifications. By nightfall Karak Strabger would be cut off. Seidentop would be lost. Captured engines would be turned on the castle come morning.

Then he caught moving glitter at the eastern end of the marsh. It was Sir Farace and the horse, come round the marsh through the narrow strip where Haaken and Reskird had pulled a near repeat of Lake Berberich.

At first O Shing was unconcerned, perhaps thinking the column was the Captal's returning. H ow long would it last?

A while. Long enough for Sir Farace and Blackfang to ford the Ebeler. O Shing and his Tervola were intent on the slaughter before them. Anstokin was being driven into the streets of Baxendala. The Kaveliners were being decimated, though the arrow storm was wreaking its havoc too. Volstokin was desperately trying to retain contact with Phiambolos, who had begun evacuating Seidentop. A hundred pillars of smoke rose from pyres marking abandoned engines. The main battle was lost.

"Turran." Bragi glanced at the sun. "Can we hold till dark? Would they keep on afterwards? Or wait till dawn to finish it?"

"We can hold. But you may have to send the mercenaries and Alteans back in."

"Right." He sent orders to Prince Raithel to stand by.

Peering toward Sir Farace, he saw that Haaken and Reskird had brought their infantry. Blackfang had had good reason for burning the pontoon. If Sir Farace failed, there would be no one to hold the right bank. Trolledyngjans. Proud men. Fools eager, even facing incredible odds, to balance their earlier defeat at Maisak.

The knights formed hurriedly, in two long ranks. O Shing's generals finally awakened, began to form the reserve legion facing them.

Shrieking trumpets carried over the uproar around Karak Strabger; the best knights of four kingdoms trotted toward the best infantry in the world. Haaken, Reskird, and their infantry ran at the stirrups of the second wave.

Had he known there would be no magic, Ragnarson reflected, he would have chosen a knights' battle. It wasn't a form of warfare with which the easterners could easily cope.

The first wave went to a canter, then a full charge, hit before the Third Legion had finished reforming.

What followed was a classic demonstration of why heavy cavalry had become the preferred shock weapon of western armies. The horsemen plowed through the enemy like heavy ships through waves, their lances shattering the front ranks, then their swords and maces smashing down from the height advantage.

Had the Shinsaners been anyone else they would have been routed. But these men stood and silently died. Like automatons they killed horses to bring knights down where their heavier armor would be a disadvantage.

The second wave hit, then the infantry. Without that second wave, Ragnarson reflected, the first might have been lost simply because the enemy didn't have the sense to run. They would have stood, been slaughtered, and have slowly turned the thing around ...

If the legionnaires would not panic, O Shing would. With trumpets and flags he began screaming for help.

Altenkirk and his Marena Dimura, now completely cut off, launched a suicide attack on Kimberlin, made sure the rebels did nothing to save the eastern emperor.

"We'll survive the day," Ragnarson said, spirits soaring. He drew his sword, gathered his shield. "Time to counter-attack." The Tervola were trying to disengage forces to aid their emperor, who was in grave danger.

As he and his staff howled out the castle gate to join Kiriakos, Ragnarson saw that Sir Farace had shifted his attack. While the stricken Third Legion ordered itself around O Shing, Volstokin's seneschal had wheeled his lines and charged the First from behind.

Ragnarson's immediate reaction was anger. The man should have gone for checkmate... But he calmed himself. The knight had seen more clearly than he. O Shing was only a man. This battle was no individual's whim, it was a playout of a nation's aspirations. The Tervola could and would replace O Shing if necessary, and could win without him. With few exceptions their loyalties were to ideas, not men.

The sun had reached the peaks of the Kapenrungs. The slaughter continued shifting in favor of the west. The Sixth and Eighth tried to close a trap but were too weary and heavily engaged to act quickly enough. Sir Farace withdrew before the jaws closed and formed for yet another charge. Before dark all four legions had suffered the fury of the western knighthood, the sort of attack Breitbarth had meant to hurl against Ragnarson at Lieneke. The assault on Baxendala had been broken.

Shinsan disengaged in good order. Ragnarson sent riders to Haaken and Reskird, ordering them to recross the Ebeler before they were trapped. Altenkirk he ordered off Kimberlin. Sir Farace he had stand off from the withdrawal. The mercenaries and Alteans, who had had a respite, he kept in contact. With the remnants of one mercenary regiment he launched a night assault on the rebels.

He had judged their temper correctly. Most of the common soldiers yielded without fighting. Sir Andvbur accepted the inevitable.

Though it meant straining men already near collapse, Ragnarson kept the pressure on Shinsan throughout the night, allowing only his horsemen to rest. All of them, even those who had fought afoot. With the rebel knights out he could afford to launch cavalry attacks.

O Shing resumed operations at dawn, withdrawing toward Maisak with the First Legion in rearguard, masking his main force with trenches dug during the night. The situation left Ragnarson in a quandary. As soon as he sent his horse in pursuit, the First, evidently rested, came out to challenge his exhausted infantry. He didn't want to settle for the single legion the enemy seemed willing to sacrifice. There was no predicting when the Power would return. If it did do so soon, Shinsan could still turn it around.

Both sides had been drained. Nearly ten thousand Shinsaners had fallen. Virtually all the rebels were dead or captured. Haaken had sent word that the Captal and his pretender were in hand. And Ragnarson feared his own losses, not yet determined, would include more than half his force.

His allies from Altea, Anstokin, and Volstokin refused to join the pursuit. The Kaveliners and mercenaries grumbled when he made the suggestion, but had less choice. He compromised. They would advance slowly, maintaining light contact, till O Shing had evacuated Kavelin. His allies undertook the destruction of the Imperial Legion.

vi) Campaign's end

Approaching stealthily, cautiously, unexpectedly, the Royalist forces of Haroun bin Yousif came to a Maisak virtually undefended. In a swift, surprise night attack they carried the gate and swept the defenders into eternity. In the deep dungeons they found the portals through which Shinsan's soldiers had come. Bin Yousif led a force through, surprised and destroyed a small fortress near Liaontung, in the Dead Empire.

Returning, he destroyed the portals, then prepared surprises for O Shing's return. If he returned.

He did, skirmishing with Ragnarson's troops all the way. The would-be emperor, trying to salvage control of the Gap, threw his beaten legions at Maisak's walls.

Soldiers of Shinsan did not question, did not retreat. For three bloody days they attacked and died. Without their masters' magicks they were only men. As many died there as had at Baxendala.

When O Shing broke off, Ragnarson, with Haroun, harried him to the ruins of Gog-Ahlan.

There Turran told Bragi, "There's no percentage in pushing him any more. The Power's returning."

Reluctantly, Ragnarson turned back toward Kavelin.