Leaves of Flame (54 page)

“S
END WHATEVER CIVILIANS are still here back to the city,” GreatLord Kobel ordered as soon as he and the rest of the lords and commanders stepped from the tent. Gregson came behind, ducking under the opening as the sounds of the battle slammed into him, Terson following. “We’ll hold the line as long as we can to give them a chance to reach Temeritt safely.”

“What about our own forces? I don’t think the Horde is going to let us retreat peacefully.”

Kobel didn’t turn to face Lord Akers. “We’ll send as many of the Legion back as we can while the rest hold the Horde.”

Akers looked skeptical.

“It’s the best we can do,” Kobel said, then reached for a helm held by a waiting recruit.

A short distance away, a covey of horses waited for the GreatLord and his entourage. The rest of the commanders and lords began preparing for battle, tugging on armor, mailed gloves, helmets. Gregson and Terson were forgotten, until Lord Akers noticed them waiting.

He sidled his horse close and leaned down. “Find your men and head for Temeritt!”

Gregson saluted, clenched fist across his chest, then began searching the confusion at the back of the army. “We need to find our group,” he said to Terson, his second motioning toward the western edge. As they cut through the Legion’s rear forces, horns blared all along the line, signaling the retreat. Everyone hesitated, and then chaos erupted, Gregson and Terson forced to dodge men as they began breaking away from the front line.

Gregson caught sight of Curtis and the rest of the Legion who had made it off the Northward Ridge with them, all surrounding the thirty civilians, including the miller Jayson, Corim,and Ara.They were huddled together,staring at the army as it heaved around them.

Additional horns sounded, more desperate than before. Gregson jogged up to Curtis and the others. “They’re calling a retreat. We need to get everyone moving toward Temeritt. We don’t have much time.”

Another horn, this one faltering mid-blast, then cutting short.

“That wasn’t a call for retreat,” Terson said grimly.

“Part of the line’s collapsing.” Gregson spun on his own Legion, on the civilians that were rising far too slowly at the soldiers’ urging. Suddenly, his patience snapped; he wasn’t going to lose control as he had on the ridge. “Terson, get those damn civilians moving now! The rest of you, everyone with weapons, form up! Protect the retreat!”

Gregson shoved them into position, the men moving too slowly. He could feel the tension of the battle at his back, could feel it escalating as the Horde picked up on the Legion’s intent. Terson bellowed orders and with Ara’s help the few civilians remaining began staggering toward the south, additional groups of Legion breaking away from the lines and streaming toward the direction of Temeritt on every side. Supply wagons were being turned, horses fidgeting and protesting the sudden frantic activity. Curtis shouted, “Gregson,” and the lieutenant turned to see his twenty-odd Legionnaires trotting after the civilian group. He broke away from the rear of the front lines, shouting, “Keep moving!” as he motioned with one hand.

They had made the crest of the first hill, had passed beneath the limbs of the first copse of trees, half a day’s ride from Temeritt, when panicked horn cries shattered the evening light.

Gregson spun, gaze sweeping across the battlefield behind, the thin line of Legion left to hold the Horde back faltering.

“It’s collapsing,” Gregson whispered.

He watched in horror as the minimal defense buckled in three places, the line between wavering, men roaring, horns crying, horses screaming, the air humming with rage, with defiance, with desperation—

And then the line gave.

Like a dam breaking, the Horde rolled up and over the Legion, spilling from the broken line in a black flood.Across the breadth of the battlefield, the beginnings of the orderly retreat collapsed. The Horde fell on the stragglers and the slower wagons and carts of supplies. Gregson’s stomach clenched as the screams rose. The eastern flank of the Legion held, but gave ground. The western flank was shoved up against the Northward Ridge and quickly surrounded. Gregson’s hand fell to his sword even as he took a step in their direction, but he ground to a halt, forcing himself to turn away from the sickening sight as the trapped Legionnaires were cut down. Swallowing against the bile in the back of his throat, the skin at the corners of his eyes tight, he found his own small group watching him intently.

“We can’t help them,” he said, voice rough, like gravel. “We’d only die trying.We have to get as many people as we can to Temeritt while the Horde’s distracted.”

He hated himself for saying it, saw a few of the men staring starkly toward the ridge, hands tensed on sword hilts. He didn’t wait for them to protest, stepping forward, hardening his voice, his expression. “Go! Move, move, move!” He grabbed Leont’s shoulder and pushed him toward the south,heard Terson growl,“You heard the lieutenant!”Jayson did the same with the remaining refugees, he and Ara urging the rest onward, deeper into the trees.

Convinced they were moving again, Gregson glanced back to see the Horde scattering on the battlefield behind, the center line of resistance completely gone. A significant portion had turned to focus on the two remaining flanks, but the rest were charging up the hillside after those fleeing toward Temeritt, no order or organization to their attack. The retreat had become a rout.

He couldn’t see GreatLord Kobel’s banner anywhere.

Fighting back a wave of despair, he turned and ran after his own men.

They fl ed, ducking through trees and sprinting across fields. The evening light began to fade and from the falling darkness they could hear ragged screams and the sounds of men and creatures crashing through the forest to either side.At one point,three riderless horses charged past,their saddles streaked with blood, the animals’ eyes wide with terror.When Terson and a few of the men tried to cut them off, to capture them, they veered away and vanished into the harsh silver moonlight. Moments later, they burst into a clearing where a small group of six Legionnaires were being harried by a pack of the catlike creatures. Drawing his sword, Gregson fell on the creatures with a vengeance, all of the fear and desperation he had experienced over the last few weeks coming to the fore. Sweat stung in his eyes as he lunged, growling without words, his sword sinking into flesh. His own Legion joined him, rallying to his side and killing the last of the hissing monstrosities in moments. Gregson staggered back from the slaughter, ran a hand across his forehead, felt stinging dark blood against his face, but Terson was already herding the group onward. Curtis threw one of the rescued Legionnaire’s arms over his shoulder, the man covered with slashes across his face, arms, and legs. The other Legionnaires were in better condition. One of them was one of the Legion’s horn bearers.

Isolated battles raged on all sides, some half-seen in the darkness, others only heard. Firelight flared in the distance. A cottage burned, its flames harsh, strange silhouettes circling the conflagration. They swerved wide around the building, saw other fi res raging farther away, dotting the hillsides like orange stars. A half hour later, they encountered a group of civilians guarded by a dozen young Legionnaires barely keeping their own terror under control. They handed over their charges to Gregson in relief, following his snapped orders as if they were on the practice field, not in the midst of a rout.

The pace slowed, the civilians weary, the wounded dragging them down. Gregson mentally cursed, searching for signs of Temeritt ahead.They couldn’t last much longer,but they couldn’t rest either. There were too many unknown forces in the hills. He and the Legion drove the refugees on relentlessly, pausing only once at the edge of a creek, men and the few women coughing and groaning as they collapsed or sank to their knees to drink. Even though he was exhausted, Gregson kept himself moving, walking among the group, men giving him weary smiles as he passed. He knew if he stopped he might never start moving again.

Thirty minutes later they were dragging everyone back to their feet and pushing onward.

They reached the rise north of Temeritt at dawn, the burgeoning light shocking Gregson to his bones. He could not believe they had survived the night, could not believe that their group had nearly doubled in size—Legion outnumbering the civilians now—could not believe that the Horde had not caught up to them.The only explanation that made sense was that the Horde was razing the lands as they came, slowing them down.

As the sun peeked above the horizon to the east, the wide grassland below came into relief.

Surrounded by four sets of thick stone walls, Temeritt stood on the heights of a giant upsurge of ground in the middle of the grassland, the palace at the top of its steepest slope, the inner walls surrounding it, the barracks, a massive stone church,and the original defensive towers.They soared over the rest of the city, the largest that Gregson had ever seen. Three more walls encircled the city in massive tiers, buildings crammed into the different levels so tight they appeared stacked one atop the other. In the golden sunlight, it appeared radiant, the city consuming the entire hill and spilling down onto the plains below like a giant ink-stain, the majority of it to the southwest of the palace and its walls. Steeples and minor towers filled the tiers as well, smoke from fires lying in a thick layer above the city, tinted orange by the sun.

Relief flooded Gregson, so visceral he could taste it, like honey coating his throat, but what caught and held his attention was the Autumn Tree. It rose from the plains north and west of the city, its massive trunk outside of the outermost city walls, its branches casting a dark shadow on the grassland beneath. Its flame-red leaves were burnished gold in the dawn, and even from this distance he could see them rustling in a breeze, the Tree appearing to be aflame.

He shuddered at the image, his gaze falling from the Tree to the plains and roadways leading to the city beneath. People were fl eeing to the gates, groups of them on the road, others heading straight for the walls across open ground. Some appeared to be sections of the Legion like them, fleeing the broken defensive line. Others were clearly refugees and civilians, carts laden with possessions dragging behind them.

He watched them as his own group struggled past. Then the flap of banners caught his attention and he straightened in his saddle, squinting into the distance.

GreatLord Kobel’s banners. They’d emerged from the tree line to the east and were charging across the fields toward Temeritt’s gates, not that far from Gregson’s position. The GreatLord led a sizable force, perhaps three hundred Legionnaires.

Hope surged in Gregson’s chest.

It turned immediately to horror.

From the forest behind the GreatLord, a contingent of the Horde emerged,Alvritshai in front,riding hard,bearing down on the smaller force of Legion protecting the GreatLord’s fl ank. Part of the troops paused and spun, arrows arching up and into the Horde on their heels, but it didn’t do much good.They were outnumbered at least two to one. The Horde would be on them in moments.

Panic threatening to claw through his chest, Gregson spun and shouted, “Legion, form up! The GreatLord is under attack! Jayson, keep the rest moving toward Temeritt. Don’t stop until you reach the gates. Terson, get these soldiers moving!”

Even as his second began issuing orders, the exhausted Legion—barely fifty men—falling into lines, Gregson turned back to the fi eld. Behind him, Curtis said quietly, “There are only fifty of us. That’s not enough men to make a difference.”

A flash of anger seered through Gregson and he spat, “I will not stand by and watch GreatLord Kobel cut down within sight of Temeritt. Not when I could have helped.” But he knew Curtis was right. Fifty men would not be enough.

He suddenly recalled the horn bearer they’d picked up during the night.

His eyes darted across the expanse of the land before Temeritt, taking in all of the scattered groups that were headed toward the city’s safety. Most hadn’t seen their GreatLord emerge from the trees, hadn’t seen the Horde hounding them, too intent on reaching the safety they could now see, knew they could reach.

A significant portion of those were Legionnaires.

“But you’re right.” He turned back to his own small group, heartened to see that they were all in line, that Jay-son and the refugees were already two hundred paces distant. He picked out the bearded horn bearer in an instant. “Horn bearer! Step forward! I want you to sound the horn and keep sounding it until every member of the Legion on these fields hears it. Understood?”

The man nodded grimly, hand falling to the curved instrument at his side and unstrapping it from its case. Greg-son didn’t wait, drawing his sword and pointing it toward the field, the men before him straightening, snapping out of their weary despondency or shock. He felt the exhaustion of the night fading, saw the sudden anger in their eyes, the hardening of clenched jaws.

Reaching deep within him, summoning strength from his chest, he roared, “For the GreatLord! For Temeritt!”