Arcanum (21 page)

He tutted, but she knew the stories told by the mundanes didn’t exactly match with what a hexmaster’s abilities actually were. That thought sent her off on another wild chase through her memories: perhaps magic had been failing on a grand scale for centuries, and no one had noticed. Perhaps it had simply been used up, and they were now dining on the dregs.

When she looked again, the Teutons had spread out in a loose picket that extended far beyond their own line, and they were advancing.

Any moment now, and the arrows would start falling. At the rate the infantrymen were marching, they would be under fire for the whole ten minutes it would take them to reach the outskirts of Obernberg. They were struggling to stay in formation as it was, their boots picking up layers of cloying mud as they walked, and there was no hope of them speeding up, let alone running.

Nikoleta decided she’d have to start killing Teutons sooner, rather than later. Every one of them dead meant one less bow and a lot fewer arrows aimed at their own troops.

She fell back to ride with Büber.

“Can you keep up?” she asked.

He eyed her warily. “Does this mean you’re about to do something stupid?”

“That depends,” she said, “on how you define stupid. Can you keep up?”

“If I have to. I’ll ask the nag too, shall I?”

“Is that a yes?”

“Gods, woman. Yes, just don’t expect too much.” Büber rolled his eyes. “You’ve seen me ride.”

She had. She knew exactly what to expect. She pulled her horse around in a tight circle and started off towards the left flank. Büber trailed behind her, his horse already puffing. The ten Carinthian horse beyond the line of spearmen weren’t looking particular purposeful. They had more the air of a bunch of nobles out for an afternoon’s hunting, back before sunset for some feasting and other such entertainments that their lord had laid on for them.

She knew all about that. It was the poor bastards trudging along on foot she had sympathy for.

She and Büber were beyond the army now. She wasn’t even sure if the prince had noticed her absence from the centre of the line. The nearest Teutons were more than dots at this range: fully realised men on horses, black and shaggy-maned, the rain shining off their armour, the light twisting on their helmets.

She reached out for them, and found them quite easily, their hot blood and beating hearts resounding in her mind like a chorus of drums.

“Are you ready, Master Büber?”

“Just how close are we going to have to get?” He reached down for his crossbow.

“Not that close, but don’t you want to see the whites of their eyes?”

“Only if we have to.” He pulled back on the lever, and the bowstring clicked into place. “You’re nothing like I thought a sorcerer would be.”

“Good, because I hate every last one of them.” She clipped her heels into her horse’s flanks and trotted out towards the enemy. The two at the end of the Teuton line started to take an interest in them. Unsure of what Nikoleta and Büber were doing, they pulled arrows from their quivers and took aim.

The air stiffened in front of her. She’d never done this on horseback before: on foot, the shield moved seamlessly with her. She had to assume it would work the same way now. The rain stopped falling on her, and instead ran in rivulets down the air.

The Teuton’s arrows were arcing towards them, flights dark against an already dark sky. They would miss, but, unlike her opponents, she didn’t need a ranging shot. She singled out the first man’s heartbeat and concentrated on it until it was the only sound she could hear.

Her tattoos flashed and shifted on her skin, and her palm, empty moments before, held a tiny ball of white fire.

Concentrate on the sound of the double concussion, the opening and closing of flaps of skin, the squeezing of muscles. She had it completely, almost as if she could see it beneath his chest.

The fire flitted away. It swelled as it flew, growing from the brilliant pebble to a fist-sized storm of light. It didn’t drop like an arrow would. It went perfectly straight, and it went faster than anything should have ever left a human hand.

The Teuton appeared transfixed by the oncoming storm. His comrade-in-arms shouted, but it was too late – had been too late from the very beginning. The man took the fire dead centre, and it consumed him in a wave.

Nikoleta heard the heart stop. The silence was abrupt, and she was suddenly aware of the world again.

She heard Büber say “fuck” under his breath. The second Teuton nocked another arrow and started for her.

Again, she felt for him, sorting through all the souls until she found his. The fire sprang to life, suspended by her will, cradled in her fingers. The Teuton stopped his ill-considered dash and loosed off his arrow. He was close enough that he would have hit her, or her horse, or Büber, but that didn’t matter so much as that he was already dead when the arrow banged against the invisible wall in front of her and broke in two.

The flames and the greasy smoke had attracted attention, from both sides. The poor bloody infantry slogged on towards the town – quite why Gerhard hadn’t used the road was lost to her – but the closest Teutons, and the Carinthian cavalry, started to converge on her.

“Are we going to pull back?” asked Büber. He felt for a crossbow bolt and fed it onto the shaft.

“No,” she said. “We’re going to take them on.”

Her horse had seemed entirely unconcerned by the pretty lights above its head, but started to shudder and twitch as a dozen Teutons came at them from one side, and the Carinthians from the other.

The northmen fired their arrows at her as they rode. That not a single one reached her didn’t lessen their accuracy, nor their rate of fire. Each crack and rattle made her horse more wide-eyed and rasp-breathed, and more difficult to control.

Her saddle wasn’t a stable platform any more, and she realised why the Order were wheeled into combat on wagons. She tutted at her mistake and swung her leg out and over, ready to dismount.

“Where are you going?” asked Büber. He raised his crossbow and took aim.

“Forget about that. Hold my horse and don’t let go.” She dropped to the ground and felt it shake under the impact of so many hooves. It was more than just a little frightening; she felt her stomach tighten and grow cold.

But she had been taught to ignore fear. She had managed to cast spells under the most extreme conditions. Will and knowledge. They were the only things that mattered.

The Teutons were charging. They had swapped their bows for swords. They were waving them wildly, and she heard Büber struggling to keep both his and her horses under control.

She fixed the leader with a knowing smile and fire ripped him apart. She didn’t stop there. The flames spread out like a curtain pulled from the ground, and the Teutons at the front were unable to turn. They plunged into it and through it.

Nikoleta knew how hot the air was, how it seared and cooked. She had never before tried it on targets that were so wet, though, so she was unprepared for the result.

On first contact, the water had exploded into steam, ripping into the Teutons’ skin, bursting out between cloth and armour, scalding their lungs. She had boiled them, men and horses, inside and out, and the results were ruinous.

They fell, half-formed, slapping to the ground, momentarily obscured in a coppery-pink fog, but then revealed as the rain beat down and the flames licked their last.

The very rearmost of the Teutons had managed to pull up. He was abruptly alone on his portion of the battlefield, facing a Carinthian hexmaster and ten Carinthian earls. He turned and galloped away as quickly as he could.

She lost her concentration momentarily. Her shield flickered and fell, and the rain pattered against her hat once more.

Büber, the earls, they were all staring at her. She gazed at the gasping, twitching shapes in front of her. One by one, they shuddered and ceased.

What did she expect? For her targets just to disappear in a puff of smoke, clean and neat? These weren’t mercenaries, hired by some lord. These were invaders, and they’d killed already.

She turned around, and took her horse’s reins from an unresisting Büber, and mounted up.

“Sirs, if you don’t have the stomach for the fight, Juvavum is back that way.” She pointed south and east. “The enemy is over there. I suggest we attack them before we lose any more of our men.”

She steered her horse around the line of still-steaming corpses, reintegrated her shield, and rode straight towards the next group of Teutons.

At least the earls knew they were no longer playing at war.

Her presence on the battlefield caused a change in tactics. Clearly, whoever was now in charge of the Teutons wasn’t stupid. He’d been using his archers to keep the Carinthian horse at bay, while sniping at the infantry. Now his right flank was exposed, there was the threat that Nikoleta could simply roll up the line by herself.

He pulled back, melting away before her and leaving her nothing to aim at. Her horse was tiring. She was directly in front of the marching spearmen, a couple of stadia distant. The half a mile into town didn’t seem so daunting now, although the Teutons were regrouping in the distance.

She stopped, and let her shield fall. She was tired too. And now she had to face Gerhard, who was riding towards her.

“You broke ranks,” he said. She saw that he was both angry at her actions, and impressed at the damage she’d caused. Her advantage, then.

“Yes.” She straightened herself and pushed her hat brim up to see him better.

“We conduct this battle according to my orders. Are we clear on that?”

If she killed him now, how many lives would she save? She batted away the thought as if it were a wasp, but it continued to buzz angrily around her as he blustered on.

“You have spent your life closeted away on Goat Mountain, while I have learnt the martial arts. You, Mistress Agana, are a weapon. Not a general. I will deploy you as I see fit. Understood?”

“My lord,” she said.

“If you please, back in line. Just because it ended well this time, doesn’t mean that the next you’ll be so lucky.” He turned away to give orders to his earls, and left Nikoleta purse-lipped next to Büber.

The infantry trudged past. There were slightly fewer of them than before, and Captain Reinhardt gave a grim-faced salute to her. He was grateful for the break in incoming fire, but had to march on nevertheless.

“They might thank you, but the prince won’t,” said Büber.

“I am becoming less concerned by that. Now, tell me what they’re doing.” She nodded in the direction of the Teutons.

Büber shielded his eyes and stood up in the saddle. “They’re massing. It looks like they’re leaving. That can’t be right.”

It was at the edge of how far she could reach out, but she tried it anyway. Points of existence, a couple of hundred humans and the same number of horses. Their blood surged and their hearts beat hot and fast.

“Unless they’re planning to come around the back,” she said. “We have to go towards the town, don’t we? Or we’ll end up trapped out here in the middle of a muddy field at nightfall.”

Büber sat back down. “If they did that, they’d be driving us towards their wagons. That can’t be right either. That is all their horse, isn’t it?”

They were starting to get left behind again, so Nikoleta guided her horse towards the infantry line.

“Am I allowed to say that this is too easy? Gerhard’s right: if we take their baggage train, we leave them with nowhere to go. All their women are there, and they won’t just sacrifice them. Will they? Are they that barbarian?”

Büber scratched at his face, keeping his eyes on the Teuton horse that were riding around their right flank, well out of bow-shot. “What have we missed?”

“If we knew that …” She peered at the town, trying to sense her way around it, but it was just too far.

The Teutons carried on into the distance, but then started to come around, forming two packs. One stayed on the right, and the other started along the back of the Carinthian line.

Again, Gerhard seemed unconcerned, as long as they kept their distance.

“They are afraid,” he said. “They have seen our might, and all they can do is watch us retake the town, destroy their meagre possessions and leave them paupers.”

“My lord,” said Nikoleta, “I don’t think that’s what they’re doing.”

He gave her a look, trying to silence her with thoughts alone. But he wasn’t a hexmaster, and it didn’t work.

“We’re surrounded,” she pointed out. “We have archers at our back, and gods-only-knows-what ahead.”

Allegretti, riding close to Felix, leant towards the boy and muttered something in his ear. Probably getting him to work out how to kill every last Teuton with only a wooden peg.

“We are not surrounded,” said Gerhard. He punctuated each word with a jab of his sword. “We will win this, and with few losses.”

She tried one last time. “They still outnumber us.”

“Good,” said Gerhard emphatically. “More heads to display when we’re through.” He deliberately turned away from her and rode down the line, and then in front of it, holding the Sword of Carinthia up high.

All the houses were clustered around the market square on the top of the hill. The slope increased, and the last set of farm buildings – a house, a barn, a byre – marked where the road and the river were, off to their left. They were almost there.

“Master Büber,” asked Nikoleta, “where is everyone?”

“Peter. You may as well call me Peter.” He wiped at the stitches on his cheek. “It’s shorter, if nothing else.”

She looked out at him from under her hat. She’d told Gerhard her name; why not this man?

“Nikoleta. Though it’s longer than ‘witch’.”

Büber coughed. It was an apology of sorts. She accepted it, and carried on.

“Where are the townspeople? Even if they’ve all fled, we should have found some of them on the road.”

“Hiding, if they can.” Büber frowned. “But if they couldn’t? Prisoners?”

“In the town square.”

“They’re going to try and force us to surrender, which the prince will never do.” He looked appalled. “I’m just a huntsman. I’m not supposed to have to worry about things like this. I rely on him to lead.”