Die for the Flame (35 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

T
he Maggan and Drumaggan armies marched across Karran with only enough breaks to keep the horses from collapsing, although many did. In a matter of days, Ferman drove his armies into a state of exhaustion. The burning anger and the need for revenge fueled his passion. He abandoned his wagon for his horse and rode up and down the columns shouting orders, demanding speed. He was afraid Clarian would escape with the Flame across the river into the far lands of which he knew nothing.

Scouts reported the road empty ahead, the land, towns, and farms empty of inhabitants. There was little upon which Ferman could take out his hatred. Shortly, the armies passed through the rolling hill country and spilled out onto the Great Grasslands. The Maggan had never seen anything like the waves of high grass stretching green in every direction to the horizon. They were amazed, having lived their lives under a canopy of heavy, dark, forest trees and down in caverns, coming out only at night to work the fields and carry out tasks the Karran did during the day.

Neevan rode with her troops, commanding a mounted soldier unit under Naguran. She worked to keep her eyes open as fatigue threatened to overwhelm her. She could not remember when she had slept last. Dozing in the saddle, she nodded off as her horse followed the horse in front, occasionally stumbling from fatigue, head bouncing as it labored. She had taken verbal lashings from Ferman in front of other officers, being blamed in part for Clarian’s deception, and she was in a sullen mood. Now she just wanted this conflict to be over. In her heart she desperately wanted to be with Clarian, but would he take her back? Would he want her as he had in the sweet days at the ferry before this insanity had erupted? She knew he had doubts about her now, that maybe she had been a decoy to lure him away from the Citadel to give Ferman time to plot and launch a surprise attack with overwhelming force. If she could only talk to him, see him, be alone with him, she was sure she could convince him she had not betrayed him and that her love for him was the most important thing in her life. Yet, here she was, in her black uniform with leather breastplate, bow and quiver, sword at her side, ready to charge into Karran ranks to kill. What if she met Clarian on the field of battle? They both might be killed in the next few days.

She drank deeply from her water container and rubbed a handful of water over her face. A cool breeze blew across the Grasslands and lifted her hair. She twisted around in her saddle to look behind. The columns of riders extended far back, interspersed with wagons full of half-asleep soldiers pulled by tired horses that refused to respond to urgings to increase their pace. They would be coming to the ferry soon, she thought, and suddenly hoped Clarian had escaped across the river and ridden off to the Crystal Mountains. After this was all over, she could cross over the river and ride after him, find him, and tell him they could make a new life somewhere else. Ranna would know where Clarian was. Oh, no! Ranna would have to escape, too, or she would die. Ferman would kill every living person not Maggan. The ferryboats would be burned or cut free. How would she cross the river? She could figure that out later. She would slip away from the Maggan army and disappear into the Grasslands until they left.

“Neevan!”

She snapped out of her dream state at the call of her name. Naguran rode up alongside her.

“There’s been some contact with the enemy up ahead. Keep the column together but send out flankers. Don’t go off into the high grass chasing the enemy.”

Nodding, she kicked her fatigued horse into a lope and waved to her troops.

Not far away, a large band of Kobani waited, shielded by tall grass, while three warriors exploded from cover, driving their horses into the rear of a mounted Maggan troop, loosing arrows into the bodies of hapless, exhausted Maggan soldiers. Their cries as they fell from their horses alerted the troop they were under attack. As quickly as they had attacked, the Kobani turned and dashed away, following a herder’s trail along a stream. The Maggan commander, screaming orders, led a band of soldiers after the retreating warriors, who made no effort to conceal themselves. After a short chase, the Maggan soldiers found themselves in a small clearing near a clear pool of water, a spot used by herders to camp. As they raced into the clearing, the main body of the Kobani party burst out of the grass from all sides, loosing arrows at close range. Horses reared and plunged, some going down, and cries of dying soldiers filled the air as the Kobani closed in, bows snapping, lances piercing, swords cutting down black-clad struggling men, and then all was quiet.

“Ferman! Come quickly!” The scout commander roused Ferman out of a nap in his bouncing wagon. He swore as he tossed aside a blanket and called for his horse and his senior aides. Night had fallen, but dark clouds pressed down, hiding the moon as Ferman galloped forward to the head of the column. As he topped a rise, he saw it. A long line of campfires stretched north to south.

“What’s this?”

“I believe it’s their battle line,” answered the scout. “They’re going to make a stand and fight.”

“Karran dogs! What kind of defense can they mount out here in the open?”

“Their battle line is long and all across our front. We can see they have troops deployed, but their numbers are not great. We should be able to break through them when we attack.”

Ferman yanked his horse’s head around to look back at his incoming army. “What’s between here and their lines?”

“Open grass and good water just ahead.”

“Very well.” He looked at his aides. “Deploy the columns as they come in and pass the word. We’ll take the good water. We’ll camp and rest the troops here. Set up the defensive positions. Now that we know the Karran have stopped running, we can plan their final hour. The cowards! I don’t think they will attack us under these conditions.”

As dawn crept into a bleak eastern sky, Clarian was busy deploying his own forces. Behind the front lines, units of veteran soldiers and townspeople, villagers and farmers, armed and in formation, were hastily organized. Whole families were assembled. Babies were left in the care of the very old. As he rode from campsite to campsite, he spoke to the gathered people. At one, he saw a familiar face. “Selanan!”

It was the goat herder from the dry Madasharan lands across the river.

“The call went out to aid you, and I came,” he said, a big smile creasing his sunburned face.

“Do you have a horse?”

“Yes. A good one.”

“I have need of you.”

After saddling his horse, Selanan followed Clarian to a gathering of messengers and scouts under Martan’s command. After introducing him and suggesting they could use another good frontiersman, Clarian waved and rode to the next campsite. It was a camp of townspeople, mostly old, some very young, and many women, led by several gray-haired veterans of past wars. To Clarian’s eye, they appeared to be well armed with bows and lances. He found them pacing through maneuvers and asked whether the commanders could call them together for him to address them before the coming battle.

“We fight now for our very existence. Our backs are to the river. There is no time and no place for us to escape the dreaded Maggan. They have driven us from our land, and now they have followed us to the very end of our frontier to seize our Flame and kill us, everyone. We have a good battle plan. I intend to defeat these night creatures at this place. Here we make our last stand. When called upon, I need each one of you to strike down the enemy before you. It has been foretold that we would be attacked but that we would prevail. We will not succumb to these creatures of the dark. May your arm be strong and your aim sure. Do not be afraid. The Flame is with us!”

He rode among the armies and spoke words of encouragement. He looked into the faces of gray-bearded veterans and smooth-faced boys and young girls and told them they would prevail, to have no doubts. By midmorning, he had completed his deployments and given final instructions. Soldiers arrayed themselves atop the high ground in full view of the Maggan troops. The bulk of Clarian’s forces were hidden, gathered behind the front lines down in the swales.

The Maggan armies came streaming in, deploying in orderly fashion across from the Karran lines. Clarian waited impatiently for the bulk of the armies to arrive. When banners and streamers appeared, he knew that Ferman and the commanders had taken the field.
Let’s not permit them to get too comfortable and settle in just yet,
he thought.

Assembling his commanders on a high point overlooking the battlefield, he spoke to them for the last time before the final engagement. “It is now time for us to commence this battle. They have been chasing us for days without rest. It is dawn, and the Maggan want to sleep. We will send them to their final sleep very shortly.”

The commanders laughed, taking heart from his confidence.

“Jolsani. Give the order to our Kobani brothers to poison the streams now. Make sure we remind our troops not to drink from those streams.”

Two Kobani warriors mounted their horses with long skins of poison hanging from their saddles and raced off to the north, where they would circle wide of the battle lines and camps to preselected spots not far from the Maggan lines. There the skins would be emptied into the fast-moving streams now used by the Maggan armies for drinking water for their troops and their horses.

“Martan, have your scouts set the fires. The wind is coming out of the west and should blow the flames and smoke right into their faces. Let’s hope they have trouble seeing us.”

Martan grinned as he turned and gave orders to aides for the designated scouts to drag pitch-laden bundles of dry grass behind their horses, sweeping the area between the Maggan and Karran lines.

“Rokkman! Now is the time for you to take the Flame in its cart, with banners flying, up on that rise,” Clarian said, pointing. “And call attention to yourself. You are our decoy. If you happen to see Ferman, wave.”

A grim Rokkman nodded amid the laughter of the officers. Resigned and hollow-cheeked, he hurried away to fulfill this most dangerous and daring assignment.

The commanders crowded close to Clarian as the morning sky brightened in the east behind heavy cloudbanks. “We’ll know when Ferman sees the Flame. I am counting on him to overreact and send his nearest units into the gap we are creating for him. When he realizes the gap is widening, he will commit his ranks and rush in. It will take place as we practiced, right over there. Now, let us begin this battle. The Flame!”

“The Flame!”

The other commanders rushed away, and Clarian stood alone on the grassy knoll, except for an aide who retreated a short distance down the back side of the hill with Clarian’s horse. The wind picked up, colder now, sweeping in from the east, whipping the tall grasses so that it seemed the whole landscape was alive. Clarian squinted at the enemy lines, judging their size. It was a big army. Would Ferman camp and let his tired army sleep? Ferman probably thought that he had caught up with Clarian before he could escape with the Karran people, the Flame, and his army across the Blue River into Madasharan lands. When he saw Rokkman and the Flame’s cart up on the hill, positioned in the line with the Karran troops, would he be tempted into a rash attack? Clarian hoped so. He was counting on it.

He wondered where in the mass of troops Neevan was. She surely was there if she had not already been injured or worse. He couldn’t think about that now, yet her beautiful face appeared to him, as it had the last time they met, appealing to him that she loved him. Could she truly love him and have betrayed him too? Had she kept him occupied far out on the frontier for Ferman, while the Maggan plotted? He saw her swimming, laughing at the spring pool, her skin so white, gliding through the crystal water, touching, lips full of passion for him. Where was she?

Smoke! There! And there! Racing across the grass in front of the Maggan lines, the scouts dragged the burning bundles on terrified horses running at full speed, the grasses catching on fire and smoke billowing up. Caught by the wind, the smoke carried into the Maggan lines. Arrows now arced up as enemy soldiers tried to bring down the riders, but they were scouts on swift horses and out of range before they could be accurately targeted. Clarian could hear shouting arising from the Maggan camp.
Good,
he thought.

The grass burned slowly, smoldering, creating more smoke than damage. The fires would not force the Maggan to reposition their lines, but it would cause visibility problems. It would also take some time before the poison coursed down the streams and reached the enemy. Clarian waited, the wind flaring his violet cloak, standing on the high ground where his troops could see him. Off to the right, he spotted Rokkman’s procession: a gold and silver cart upon which sat the Sacred Crystal in its gold and silver container. The cart was festooned with white and violet streamers and a large banner emblazoned with the white flame. The cart crested the rise and stopped there, in plain view of the entire battlefield. Rokkman in his violet finery and violet hat stood next to the cart as if about to preside over a sacred ceremony. Clarian raised his arm and waved at Rokkman, who looked back at him without waving. Now both waited.

“That cursed fire again! Well, it’s not working too well this time. The grass is not dry enough. It’s just smoke, and that will burn itself out shortly,” prophesized Ferman to Sulan and a group of commanders, standing outside his tent on a patch of high ground, the smoke wafting all around.

Sulan wasn’t his usual cocky self, his face drawn tight and his eyes wary. “Why isn’t he running?”

“Run where? There’s nowhere to go except across the river. He won’t leave his army and his people, and they haven’t time for all of them to cross. We caught up with them before their little plan could be implemented. He will die here, and he knows it. He’ll make a stand, but he knows he’s finished.”

Sulan did not look convinced. “And those strange tattooed soldiers with braided hair. They are everywhere.”