With Mercy Towards None

Chapter Twenty-Two:

LAST BATTLE

H aroun and Beloul stared down at their enemies. The encircling camp grew larger every day.

"This could get damned nasty, Lord," Beloul observed.

"You'd make a great prophet, Beloul." Haroun glanced along Libiannin's crumbling wall. Heavy engines would have no trouble breaching it.

The enemy really needn't waste time on engines. A concerted rush would carry the wall. He and Hawkwind hadn't the men to defend it, and the natives refused to help.

"What's happening, Beloul? Why haven't they attacked? Why hasn't the Itaskian fleet shown? They must know what's going on. They'd want to take us out, wouldn't they?"

He had had no contact with the world for weeks. The last he had heard, El Murid was reported slain in a huge battle with the Itaskians. His hopes had soared like exultant eagles. He had sent out messenger after messenger, till it seemed an endless parade of fishing smacks were leaving harbor, never to be seen again.

"We're marooned, Lord," Beloul said. "The world is getting on with business and has forgotten us. Maybe on purpose."

"But with the Disciple dead... "

"Lord, nobody but us Royalists gives a damn if you ever sit the Peacock Throne. The Itaskians? They're glad to have us howling around down here keeping the Disciple's men busy. But are they going to spend lives for us? It wouldn't profit them."

Haroun grinned weakly. "Have mercy, O Slayer of Illusions."

"Here comes Shadek. He looks like a man about to slay a few dreams."

El Senoussi's face did have a grim cast. Haroun trembled. He smelled bad news.

"A boat came in, Lord," Shadek puffed.

"Well?"

"It brought a Guildsman, not one of our men. He's with Hawkwind now. He had a funny expression when he looked at me. Kind of a sad, aching look. Made me think of a headsman about to swing his sword on his brother."

Haroun's back suddenly felt cold. "What do you think, Beloul?"

"I think we better take care to watch our backs, Lord. I think we're going to find out why our messengers never came back."

"I was afraid you'd say that. I wish I'd pursued my shaghûn studies to the point where I could perform a divination... Would they really turn on us?"

"Their interests aren't ours, Lord."

"I was afraid you'd say that, too."

Haaken and Reskird looked like men standing at the graveside of a friend suddenly struck down. Ragnarson was so angry he could not speak.

Orders had come. After all these years.

Bragi compelled himself to calm down. "How many people know about this?"

"Just us. And the courier." Kildragon indicated the man who had brought the message from General Lauder.

"Reskird, take that sonofabitch somewhere and keep him busy. Haaken, hustle down to the barracks and sort out everybody who was in our company when we left High Crag. Get them out of the way, then tell the others we've got a full kit formation in two hours. Ready to march."

Haaken eyed him suspiciously. "What are you up to?"

"Let's just say a permanent commission as captain isn't a big enough payoff for selling out a friend. Do what I told you."

"Bragi, you can't... "

"Like hell I can't. I resigned from the Guild five minutes before that guy got here. You and Reskird both heard me."

"Bragi... "

"I don't want to hear about it. You gather up your Guildsmen and hike them up to High Crag. Us non-Guildsmen are going to take a hike of our own."

"I just wanted to say I'm going with you."

Bragi studied him a moment. "Not this time, Haaken. You belong in the Guild. I don't. I've been thinking about this a long time. I don't fit. Not in what it would be in peacetime. I want to do too much that the Guild wouldn't allow. Like lay hands on lots of money. You can't be rich and be a Guildsman. You've got to give it all to the brotherhood. You, you don't need the things I do. You belong. So you just stay. In a couple years you'll have your own company. Someday... "

Ragnarson's voice grew weaker as he spoke. Haaken was looking hurt. Bad hurt. He was trying to hold back tears.

They were brothers. Never had they been separated long. He was telling Haaken it was time they went their own ways. Haaken was hearing that he was not needed anymore, that he was not wanted, that he had been outgrown.

Bragi felt the pain too.

"I have to do this, Haaken. It's going to ruin me with the Guild, but I have to. I don't want to drag you down too. I'll be back after it's over."

"Stop. No more explaining. We're grown men. You do what you have to do. Just go... Get away... "

Bragi peered at his brother intently. He had injured Haaken's pride. The man behind that taciturn exterior never forgot that he was adopted, never let himself think he was as good as other men. The little rejections became big in his mind... Best to just end it now, before they said something that would cause real pain. "Gather your men, Haaken. You have your orders." Bragi walked away. There were tears in his eyes too.

He managed to round up enough mounts for his men, more by theft than legitimate means. He hustled his baffled troops out of town before news of the treacherous peace could reach their ears.

His outriders captured an enemy courier almost immediately. "Read this," he ordered his interpreter, handing him a captured dispatch.

"Let's see. All the usual greetings and salutations. To the Captain of the Host at Libiannin... It's from El Murid himself. Here's the gist. The Disciple is heading south to participate in the final solution to the Royalist problem. His own words. That's it. He probably sent several couriers, just in case."

"Uhm? He would be ahead of his messenger, would he? Boys, we're going to double-hustle now. Let's see if we can't have a little surprise waiting for the sonofabitch."

Haroun placed a gentle, restraining hand on Shadek's elbow. El Senoussi was ready to launch a one-man crusade against Hawkwind's Guildsmen. "It wouldn't do any good, Shadek. They have their orders, like them or not."

The Guildsmen were trooping aboard ships that had come to take them out of the city. An embarrassed and displeased Sir Tury had posted guards to make sure no Royalists joined the evacuation. The guards would not look their former comrades in the eye.

"So it goes, Shadek," Beloul observed. "The waters of politics run deep and dark. Occasionally there has to be a sacrificial lamb."

"Now's a damned poor time for you to go philosophical on us, Beloul," el Senoussi snapped. "Stop jacking your jaw and start finding a way out of this."

"I wonder what El Murid gave up to get us?" Haroun mused.

"I'm sure he gave the Guild and Itaskians their money's worth, Lord."

"I didn't think he cared anymore. He's ignored us lately."

"Maybe getting three-quarters killed gave him a more intimate perspective," Beloul suggested.

"Don't be facetious."

Hawkwind had stretched the letter of his orders and filled them in on current events. His news hadn't been good for the Royalist cause.

Haroun glanced across the far curve of the harbor. A pair of heavily fortified hills stood there. They were connected with the city by a long wall guarding a strip of coast only fifty yards wide. Many smaller ships were beached there. Quietly, Haroun's men were seizing those in hopes some Royalists could follow the Guildsmen to sea.

"How many can we get out?" Shadek asked.

"Maybe a thousand," Beloul replied. "If the Guildsmen's brave rescuers don't stand off the roads and keep us bottled."

Haroun glared at the troopships. "Think the treachery runs that deep?"

Beloul shrugged. "Time will tell, Lord."

One by one, the transports stood out to sea. Haroun, Beloul and el Senoussi watched in silence. Shortly after the last warped away from the quay a runner arrived.

He gasped, "Lord, there're warships ready to come into the channel."

"Uh-huh," Shadek said, congratulating himself.

Haroun felt the color leave his face. "What flag?"

"Scuttarian, Lord."

"And Dunno Scuttari is in the Disciple's bag. Beloul, forget your little navy. Looks like our only choice is to take as many with us as we can. Shadek, round the men up and send them to the wall. It won't be long."

"Maybe we can negotiate something," Beloul suggested.

"Would you bargain with them if the roles were reversed?"

Beloul laughed sourly. "I see what you mean, Lord."

Push as he might, Ragnarson could not match El Murid's pace. The Disciple reached Libiannin fifteen hours ahead but too late in the day to launch the attack he had come to enjoy.

Ragnarson's outriders captured a courier who apprised them of the true state of affairs.

"We keep going tonight," Bragi announced. "Maybe we can get there in time to do some good. I'm going to ride ahead."

He gathered a small band and surged ahead outdistancing his main force. He scouted Libiannin's environs, found what he wanted and rejoined his command as the sky began to lighten.

The hill he had selected overlooked the enemy main camp. Its base was just a mile from Libiannin's wall. The remains of an Imperial fortification crowned it. A small party of desert scouts occupied the ruins.

Ragnarson sent his sneakiest people forward. His main force reached the peak of the hill fifteen minutes later. The enemy there were all dead. "Perfect." He assembled his captains. "What I want is... "

El Murid and his people had their attention fixed on Libiannin. Ragnarson's men dug in for an hour before they were noticed. By then the Host had arrayed itself for the assault on the city.

Bragi went downhill, well below his foremost trench. He stood with hands on hips and said, "You folks go right ahead. Don't mind us." No one could hear, of course, but that was unnecessary. His stance conveyed his message. "But be careful about turning your backs on me."

He walked back uphill, listened to his men cuss and grumble as they deepened their trenches. They were not pleased by what they saw below. They were badly outnumbered.

One of Ragnarson's officers who was in the know asked, "What kind of standard should we show? We need something new if we just represent ourselves."

Despite his weariness and concern, Ragnarson was in a good mood. "Should be something unique, right? Something that will puzzle hell out of them. Tell you what. See if you can't find some red cloth. And some black. We'll make a flag like my father's sail. It'll drive them goofy."

Several officers got into the act, creating bizarre standards of their own.

The Host vacillated, racked by indecision. Bragi raised his standard, a black wolf's head on red. Baffled, the Disciple sent a deputation to investigate.

Bragi laughed at their questions while carefully concealing his true strength. He said, "The way I see it, you men have three choices. Attack Libiannin and have us jump on your backs. Attack us and have Haroun do the same. Or you can get smart and go the hell home."

One envoy glanced at the banner and for at least the fifth time asked, "Who are you?"

"I should let you find out the hard way." He could no longer resist a brag. "Ragnarson. Bragi Ragnarson. The Ragnarson that got rid of the Scourge of God, Mowaffak Hali and el-Nadim. Not to mention Karim. There's one name left on my list. Tell your nitwit boss I'll scratch his off too if he doesn't get out of here."

"That Guildsman from Altea? The Guild has made peace. You're out of line. This is between our Lord and bin Yousif."

"And me, Wormface. And me. I'm no Guildsman now."

One of Ragnarson's officers whispered, "Don't push them, sir. They may go."

"I'll carry this news to my Lord," an Invincible said. "It will help him reach his decision." He spun and raced down the hill.

"I don't like the way he said that," someone muttered.

"I think I goofed," Bragi admitted. "My name is right up by Haroun's on the Disciple's list. Stand to arms. Double-check the arrows."

"Can you tell what's happening, Lord?" Shadek asked. "My eyes aren't what they were."

"Mine aren't that good. Looks like somebody's dug in on that hill out there."

"Must be on our side," Beloul guessed. "Else they'd be all over us by now."

"But who? We have no friends anymore."

They waited and watched. The Host waited and baked in the increasingly uncomfortable sun.

"Couldn't you reach out with your shaghûn sensing, Lord?" Shadek asked.

"I don't know. I haven't used it for so long... I'll give it a go."

Beloul and Shadek shooed the nearer warriors. Haroun seated himself, bent forward, sealed his eyes against the sun. He murmured poorly remembered exercises taught him long ago. A fleeting memory of el Aswad fluttered across his mind. Had that been him? That innocent child? It seemed like another boy in another century, roaming those desert hills with Megelin Radetic, spending those miserable hours with the lore-masters from the shadowed valleys of Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni.

Slowly, slowly, the chant took shape. He took hold and repeated it till his mind had shed all distractions, then he reached out, reached out...

A sound like a mouse's squeak crossed his motionless lips.

"All right." He lifted a hand. El Senoussi helped him rise. "I'll be damned," he muttered. "I'll be damned."

"Not a doubt of it, Lord," Beloul chided. "But did you learn anything?"

"I did indeed, Beloul. I did indeed. That's our fool friend Ragnarson out there. He's come to save us from the fury of the madman of the wastes."

Shadek and Beloul looked at him oddly. Beloul said, "Ragnarson? But he's Guild."

"You think we should tell him to go away?"

"Not just yet, Lord. Him decorating that hill improves the view marvellously."

And Shadek, "It gives a man a good feeling here inside, knowing there are people who will stick."

"Don't forget it if we get out alive, Shadek. We'll owe him bigger than ever. Let us, too, be men who can be counted upon by our friends."

"Not only our friends but our enemies, Lord."

"The Disciple must be in a dither," Beloul observed. "Like a starving dog stationed between two hunks of meat. Which should he jump first?"

"Except these two hunks will bite his behind if he turns his back."

"Take not too much heart, Lord," Shadek cautioned. "Ragnarson would have far fewer men than the Disciple. And El Murid has his amulet."

The Host went into motion. It split like some weird organism giving birth to another of its kind. Half came toward the city. The remainder faced about and advanced on Ragnarson's hill.

"And there's the answer," Beloul quipped. "The dog turns into two dogs."

"Tell the men they have to hang on till our allies finish their share of the Host," Haroun said.

"Let me be the first to congratulate you on your new-found optimism, Lord," Shadek said.

"No need to be sarcastic, Shadek."

"There's good and good, Lord, and some things could be better than they are. I'll speak to the men."

Haroun nodded. He returned to his semi-trance, supposing that, in this extremity, his small talent as a sorcerer would be more valuable than his talent as a swordsman. He tried to lay a slight, small cloud upon the minds of the men about to attack Libiannin.

At least six thousand horsemen swarmed up Ragnarson's hill. "Oh, damn!" he swore. "I didn't count on them splitting." He shouted and waved, letting his people know they could loose their shafts at will. Clouds of arrows arced toward the riders.

Few of these horsemen had faced the arrowstorms so often seen in the north. They received a rude shock.

Every man of Ragnarson's carried a bow. The pikemen and swordsmen of his front ranks loosed several shafts apiece before hefting their weapons and bracing to receive the charge. The regular archers never slackened fire. These infantrymen had borne the charge of el Nadim's cavalry and had survived. They had confidence in themselves and their officers. They faced the human tidal wave without losing their courage.

The Host left thousands dead on that hillside and countless more heaped before the trenches. The pikemen fended them off while the archers plinked. Yet the impetus of the attack was so massive, Ragnarson's front began to sag. It seemed the surviving horsemen might yet carry the day.

He committed his small reserve, ran back and forth behind the line cursing his bowmen for not shattering the attack.

For half an hour it hung in the balance. Then, here, there, a few of the enemy began to slip away. The larger mass, almost entirely unhorsed after Ragnarson had ordered his bowmen to redirect their fire against the animals, began to give ground. Ragnarson ordered his wings forward to give the impression he meant to encircle.

Panic hit the enemy. They blew away like smoke on the wind.

"That was close," Bragi muttered. His men were exhausted but he had no mercy. "Sort out the wounded and get them up to the ruins," he ordered. "Archers, get down the hill and recover arrows. Move it! Come on, move it! Officers, I want to form for the advance. We've got to challenge them before they get their balance."

He had drums pound out the message of his coming. He had his men beat their shields with their swords. He hoped nerves in the Host would be so frayed his enemies would scatter.

El Murid had other ideas. He detached men from the assault on Libiannin and sent them to reorganize the survivors of the first wave for a second attack.

Ragnarson did to that second wave what he had done to the first, more thoroughly. The horsemen were less enthusiastic about facing the arrowstorm. They took longer reaching his pikemen and as a consequence suffered more from the blizzard of shafts. The enemy coming up afoot never closed with Ragnarson's line.

More drums. More shield banging. And again El Murid did not bluff. He pulled all his men away from the city.

This time he spearheaded the attack himself, pounding the hill with bolts of lightning called from the cloudless sky.

Ragnarson was proud of his soldiers. They did not let the sorcery panic them. They took cover and tried to hold their ground. When compelled to fall back they did so with discipline, fading toward the ruin.

They wrought incredible carnage while their arrows lasted. But this time the supply ran dry.

Bragi heard a distant whinny and sudden pounding of hooves. The Disciple's men had captured his mounts. "Looks like I miscalculated this time, don't it?" he told one of his officers.

"You're damned calm about it, Colonel."

Surprised, he realized he was calm. Even with the lightning stalking about. "Get back into the ruins. They'll have to come after us on foot. They're no good on the ground."

He ran hither and thither, establishing his companies amidst the tumbled stone. The majority of the foe were hanging back letting their prophet hammer the hill. El Murid was not much of a sharpshooter. Satisfied with his new dispositions, Bragi climbed to the ruin's highest point and stared toward the city. "All right, Haroun. This is your big chance."

Haroun surveyed his men. Their mounts pranced as if eager to be off to the fray. The warriors wore grins. They could not believe their good fortune. An absolute certainty of destruction had turned into a chance for escape.

"How soon, Lord?" Shadek asked.

Haroun peered at the hill. Ragnarson was in bad trouble. "A few minutes yet. Let a few hundred more dismount." He considered the street below. Beloul had finished passing along the line, vigorously pointing out that there was to be no run for freedom while El Murid's back was turned. They were to jump the Disciple from behind.

The more Beloul talked the fewer were the grins.

"Now, Shadek. Take the left wing. Beloul will go to the right."

"I'm thinking we ought to head east, then north, as hard as we can ride."

"What about our friends?"

El Senoussi shrugged.

"Who was it said something about people sticking? Sometimes I wonder how much I dare lean on you myself, Shadek."

"Lord!"

"The left wing, Shadek. Go after them as hard as you can, as long as you can. Let's not let El Murid duck the Dark Lady again."

"Suppose he won't let you duck?"

"Shadek."

"As you command, Lord."

Haroun led them out, spread them out and trotted them toward Ragnarson's hill. His coming was not wholly unanticipated. Many of the Disciple's horsemen came to meet him.

The lines crashed. Horses reared and screamed. Men shouted war- and death-cries. Lances cracked, swords clanged, shields whumped to the impact of savage blows. Dust rose till it choked the combatants, coating their colorful clothing a uniform ochre. And the Disciple's horsemen gave way.

Haroun howled and wailed, urging his men to finish it for once and all. His blood was up. He never thought to appeal to his people with arguments more convincing than love for their King. What matter to him that one man's death would mean they could return to loved ones unseen for years? He had no loved ones waiting in Hammad al Nakir. What matter that the passing of El Murid would permit their escape from sad roles as unwanted strangers in lands with grotesque customs? He was a stranger everywhere.

For Haroun—and Beloul—home was the hunt for the hated foe. Family were the men who shared the stalk.

A hand of fear passed over the battlefield. Its shadow fell heaviest upon the Chosen.

Haroun crowed and whipped his men forward.

The enemy broke and flew away like autumn leaves scattering in a sudden cold wind.

Beloul and Shadek drove their wings forward. Haroun, wounded, kept pointing with his blade and cursing his men because they would not hurry.

Spears of lightning fell upon the battleground, failing to discriminate among targets. Horsemen pelted away from every point of impact.

Haroun tried to locate the Disciple. He descried a large band of Invincibles, but could not determine if El Murid were amongst them. He tried to force his way closer.

More and more of the Disciple's horsemen fled. Some flew eastward, toward Hammad al Nakir. Some galloped across the narrow plain and got inside Libiannin's undefended wall.

The fighting rolled this way and that, up and down Ragnarson's hill. All order vanished. Immense confusion set in. The dust made it difficult to distinguish friend from foe. Neither side could guess who might be winning. But the longer it went on, the more the once stout members of the Host chose the better part of valor.

Late in the afternoon the big band of Invincibles lost their nerve. They scattered. The morale of the Host collapsed. It dissolved in minutes.

"Enough," Haroun told Beloul, who wanted to give chase. "We got out alive. That's enough." He dismounted with exaggerated care. His legs quaked with weariness and reaction. He lowered himself to the earth and began cataloging his injuries.

Twenty minutes later Ragnarson limped down the hill. He was covered with gore. Some was his own. He rolled a corpse aside, seated himself on the trampled earth, loosed a weary sigh. "I'm going to be too stiff to move for a week. If they come back... "

"They won't," Haroun promised. "They're going home. They've had enough. This was the last battle." Despair shadowed the corners of his soul. "The last battle. And the desert is still theirs." The groans and cries of wounded men nearly drowned his soft, sad voice. "I should have seen it before."

"What?"

"It will take more than killing El Murid to recover Hammad al Nakir."

He stared down the hill. The fallen lay in mounds and windrows, as though a big, wild tornado had slapped down in the midst of a parade. People from Libiannin were hurrying toward the field to join the looting. "Beloul, run those people off. You needn't be polite about it." A handful of Royalists, apparently with energy to spare, were working the dead already.

Haroun turned to Ragnarson. "My friend... My friend. What are you doing here? Sir Tury had more room to refuse than you did."

Ragnarson wrapped his arms around his knees, rested his right cheek atop them. "What orders? This is my army." He tried to smile. It was too much work. "I'm my own man now."

The setting sun painted the seaward sky a fitting shade of blood. A cool breeze came off the water. Bold gulls drifted inland, curiosities aroused by the gathering ravens.

"They wouldn't be too harsh with you," Haroun guessed. "You won. Winners are easily forgiven."

"I don't want to go back. I wasn't born to be a soldier. Not the Guild type, anyway."

"What, then, my friend?"

"I don't know. Not right now. There'll be something. What about you?"

Haroun glanced at Shadek, at Beloul returning across the field of death. "There's an usurper on the Peacock Throne." A vast weariness entered his voice. He was tired unto death, and still the ghosts whispered in his ears. His father, Yousif, to his right, his uncle, Fuad, to his left. Contested by Megelin Radetic. "Still an usurper."

"There's one in my homeland too. The way I figure it, time and his own stupidity will take care of him."

"I'm not made for waiting."

Ragnarson shrugged. "It's your life. What ever happened to the fat guy? He was weird, but I liked him."

"Mocker? I thought he was with you."

"I haven't seen him since we split up. I figured he went with you."

"Curious."

"Maybe he headed east. He talked about it enough."

"He talked about everything. Probably somebody finally stuck a knife in him."

Ragnarson shrugged again.

Below, the groans and cries continued. More of their men were finding the ambition to search the dead.