Arrow's Fall (36 page)

They were easily seven feet tall, with dark pits in their skulls in place of eyes, in the depths of which a dim red fire seemed to flicker. Their mouths were fanged: their leathery yellow hides, the color of rancid butter, seemed armor enough. They each carried a double-bladed axe in one hand, a knife nearly the length of a sword in the other. There were nearly a hundred of them. A fearful murmuring arose from the ranks of Selenay’s forces—a few arrows flew in the direction of the things, but those that connected merely bounced off. As they opened their fanged mouths to roar and began advancing on the center of Selenay’s lines, her own troops fell back a step or two involuntarily.

Then, without warning, one of the demon-warriors stopped dead in its tracks, and let out a howl that caused men to dap their hands to their ears; then it burst into flame.

It howled again, and began staggering in circles, a walking pyre. Selenay’s troops cheered again; then the cheering died, for the rest of the demons were still coming, oblivious to the fate of the burning one, which had fallen to the ground, still afire.

A second and a third ignited—and still they kept coming. They moved fairly slowly, but it was evident that they would reach Selenay’s lines in a few moments.

And so they did—and the slaughter they caused was hideous. The demons waded into the line of fighters as a man might wade into a pack of yipping curs. They swung their heavy axes with deceptive slowness—and sheared through armor and the flesh beneath as if the armor were paper and the flesh as soft as melted cheese. There was no deflecting the blows of those vicious axes; a man in the way of one of them went down with his shield split, and his skull split as well. Incredibly, fighters pressed to replace those that had fallen, but their bravery was useless. The axes continued to swing, and the replacements joined their fellows, either in death or in mangled agony. The Guard swarmed to make a protective wall around Selenay and her commanders, but the demons were inexorably cutting through them. There was blood everywhere—some of it yellow, but precious little compared to the amount of red, human blood flowing. Men cried out in fear or in pain, the monsters roared, and under all was the screech of blade-edge meeting armor and the stink of demon-flesh burning.

Griffon, standing far behind the lines, brow furrowed with concentration, was focusing on yet another of the demons. As it, too, went up in flames, he looked for a new target in despair. It seemed that he alone could kill these monsters—but there were so many of them!

“Herald—” He tried to ignore the insistent voice in his ear, but the man would not go away. He turned impatiently, to see that his persistant companion was the Councillor, Bard Hyron. Hyron was enough of a trained bowman to have warranted a place back here, alongside Griffon.

“Herald—the tales say these things are dependent on their sorcerer. If you kill him, they’ll vanish!”

“What if the tales are wrong?”

“You won’t have lost anything,” the Bard pointed out. “Look—the mage must be in that knot of people back by the standard; just to the left of the center and the rear of Ancar’s lines.”

“Get me a Farseer!” Before Griffon had finished speaking, the man was off, running faster than Griffon would have guessed he could.

The Bard was back in an instant—too long for Griffon, who watched, sickened, as the demons carved down another swath of the Guard.

“I’m looking, Grif—” It was Griffon’s red-haired year-mate, Davan, who came stumbling up in the Bard’s wake— stumbling because he had one hand pressed to his forehead, trying to “See” as he ran. “I’ve—bloody
hell!
I
know
he’s there, but they’re blocking me!
Damn
you, you bastards—”

Davan went to his knees, face twisted and unrecognizable with the effort of fighting the blockage the mages were putting on him.

“Come
on
, Davan—” Griffon glanced up; and swallowed bile and fear. The demons were continuing to advance. He concentrated, and sent the nearest up in flames, but another took its place.

Hyron froze for a moment, then ran off again. Griffon hardly noticed; he was doing what he could—and it wasn’t enough.

Pounding hooves and a flash of white that Griffon saw out of the corner of his eye signaled the arrival of another Herald. Distracted, Griffon turned to see who it was.

Dirk—and not Ahrodie, but
Rolan!

Dirk slid off the stallion’s bare back, and took Davan by the shoulder, shaking him. “Break it off, little brother— that isn’t going to get you anywhere,” he shouted over the noise of battle. “You two—don’t argue. Link with us—’;

Griffon did not even bother to think, much less argue. He linked in with Dirk, as he had so often done as a student—

To find himself, not in a four-way linkage, but a
five
.

Dirk was linked to Rolan—who in his turn was linked to—Talia?

Yes, it
was
Talia.

Dirk’s ability at Mindspeech was limited, but urgency made it clear and strong
. :Davan, follow Her. Mage used death to raise power—pain, despair—She can track it to him. Grif, follow Davan—I hold here.:

Davan caught that; they all remembered how Talia had used Ylsa’s dying to lead Kris’ Farsight to where her body lay. The thread of Talia’s sending was faint, but unmistakable. Davan caught and followed it, and Griffon, linked in as closely as he dared, was hot on his “heels.”

:Yes—yes, I’ve got him! I See him! He’s dressed in a bright sky-blue velvet robe—Grif, strike now, through me!:

Clear in Davan’s mind, Griffon saw a wizened man in a robe of vivid blue just a little to one side of the knot of people around Ancar’s standard. And that was all he needed.

With hatred and anger he hadn’t known he could feel, born of the horror he felt watching his fellows being slaughtered, he
reached
—

And found himself blocked, as he’d never been before.

He strove against the wall blocking him, fighting his way through it with every ounce of energy he possessed, fueled by his rage—

He felt it yield just the tiniest amount, and dragged up new reserves of energy—from where, he neither knew nor cared.

There was an explosion in Ancar’s lines. And a tower of flame rose next to Ancar’s standard—

And the demons vanished.

Griffon’s eyes rolled up into his head, he fainted dead away, and Davan went with him; Hyron and Dirk caught them as they fell.

When the demon-warriors vanished, Selenay’s forces let out a cheer of relief. Selenay cheered with them, but wondered if they were being a bit premature.

When no other arcane attacks manifested,
then
she truly felt like cheering. There must have been only the one mage, and somehow the Heralds had been able to defeat him.

“Griffon and Davan found the mage and burned him,” Kyril said at Selenay’s glance of inquiry. “They both collapsed, after. Griffon’s still passed out, but it doesn’t look as if he’ll be needed again in a hurry.”

No, it didn’t; for now Ancar’s regular troops were charging Selenay’s tine. The bowmen showered them with arrows—no few of which found their marks. Ancar’s own crossbowmen had long since expended their own bolts—uselessly, it might be added—and had switched to charging with the rest, swords in hand. Selenay’s Guards-folk braced themselves for the shock, for now the first step of their battle plan was about to take place.

When Ancar’s line hit Selenay’s with a clangor of metal on metal and cries of battle-rage and pain, most of their force was concentrated on the middle, where Selenay’s standard was. She waited, ignoring the sight and sound of her people killing and being killed, for several long moments—for
she
, not the Lord Marshal, was the field commander. Her Gift of Foresight was not a strong one, but it was an invaluable one, for it operated best on the battlefield. It would not tell her what was to happen, but given that there were plans already made, it
would
tell her when the exact instant occurred that those plans should be set into motion.

She waited, listening for that insistent inner prompting. Then—”Tell the left to pull in,” she said to Kyril.

He Mindsent, with a frown of concentration, and almost instantly the troops on the lefthand side of the standard began making their way toward the center.

As she’d hoped, Ancar sent his cavalry to the left, with foot following—supposing that he could encircle their ftne at that point, or even capture the supposed Heir.

“Wheel—•” she told Kyril. And relayed by the Heralds with each group, the entire force pivoted on the center, with the leftmost end being on the very edge of the swamp, where some of Ancar’s cavalry were even now discovering the two and three feet of water and mud.

She waited another long moment, until all of Ancar’s forces were between her line and the woods on the left.

Then—”Now, Kyril! Call them in!”

And pouring from the woods came the troops that had hidden there all night—fresh, angry, and out for blood; the defectors from Alessandar’s army, and the Heralds that were their link to the command post. The defectors looked a little odd, for each of them had spent a few moments of his hours in waiting cutting away the sleeves of his uniform tunic so that the sleeves of the white, padded gambeson showed. There could now be no mistaking them on the battlefield for Ancar’s troopers.

Caught between two forces, with a morass in front of them, even Ancar’s seasoned veterans began to panic.

After that, it was a rout.

Griffon was the first to reach the Keep, half-blind with reaction-headache. He had stayed only long enough to assure himself that the victory was indeed Selenay’s, then pulled himself onto his Companion’s back and sought the Healers.

“We did it; we pulled it off,” he told Elspeth, downing a swallow of headache-potion with a grimace. “Those extra troops from Hardorn turned the tide. By now what’s left of Ancar’s army is probably being chased across the border with its tail between its legs.”

“What about Ancar himself?”

“Never got into the thick of battle; probably he’s gotten away. And before you ask, I don’t know if Hulda was with him, but I’d guess not. From what I’ve been able to pick up from you and Talia, I’d say she isn’t one to put herself at any kind of risk. She’s probably safely back at the capital, consolidating things for her ‘little dear.’ “

“What about—”

“Elspeth, my head is about ready to break open. I think I know why Lavan called the Firestorm down on himself—it probably felt better than his reaction-headache! I’m going to go pass out for a while. Thank Talia for me. We couldn’t have done it without her. And you stay ready; they’ll be bringing battle casualties back any minute now. The Healers will need every hand they can get, and there’ll be plenty of fellows eager for the privilege of having the Heir listening to their boasts while they’re being patched up.”

So it proved . . . and Elspeth learned firsthand of the aftermath of battle. She grew a great deal older in the next few hours. And never again would she think of war as “glorious.”

Selenay remained on the Border, as fresh troops came to help with mopping-up, but Elspeth, the Councillors, the wounded, and most of the Heralds (including Talia and Dirk) returned to the capital.

Just before the Councillors left, Selenay called them all together.

I
must
remain here,” she said, feeling gray with exhaustion. “Elspeth has full powers of regency; in my absence she heads the Council—with full vote.”

Lord Gartheser looked as if he was about to protest, then subsided, sullenly. The Councillors who had been Qrthallen’s advocates—with the exception of Hyron—were angry and unhappy and would be Elspeth’s first problem.

“You have no choice in this, my Councillors,” Selenay told them, fixing her eyes on Gartheser in particular. “In war the Monarch has right of decree, as you well know. And should there be any trouble ...”

She paused significantly.

“Be certain that I shall hear of it—and act.”

Elspeth called a Council meeting as soon as they were all settled, but sent messages that it would be held in Talia’s quarters.

With the more aged or slothful of the Councillors grumbling and panting their way up the stairs to the top story, the meeting convened.

Talia was by no means well; she was healed enough to an hour or two undrugged, but no more than was propped up on her little couch, positioned under her window. She wore bandages everywhere except her head and neck; her ruined feet were encased mood bootlike contraptions. She was nearly as white as the uniform she wore. Elspeth sat next to her, with one eye on her at all times.

Lord Gartheser (predictably) was the first to speak. “What has been going on here?” he snapped angrily. “What’s all this nonsense about Orthallen being a traitor? I—”

“It is not nonsense, my lord,” Talia interrupted him quietly. “I heard it from his co-conspirators, and his own actions when confronted merely with their names proves his guilt.”

Simply, and without elaboration, she told the whole story of what she and Kris had learned about Ancar, of the massacre at the banquet, of Kris’ death, and her confrontations with Hulda and Ancar.