The Raven Collection
Chapter 98 : He responded automatically, feeling the axe clash against a Wesman weapon. Placing his

He responded automatically, feeling the axe clash against a Wesman weapon. Placing his sword to block forward he turned his gaze on the wide-eyed enemy who couldn't hope to match his speed. He leaned in, smashed his elbow into the man's face and brought his axe back up and right, feeling it bury in his midriff, lifting him from his feet. He shook the corpse off, his attention already on the warrior attacking his left flank.

Falling back, rear Manse elevation. Front rank rest, third to line. Weapons ready. Joining.

Aeb savaged his sword into an exposed neck.

It was mid-afternoon.

'Balaia, let's march!' Darrick roared, swinging his sword arm in a wide circle over his head, and his desperate move began. Eschewing his horse in favour of walking at the head of the exclusively foot-borne army, Darrick nonetheless made himself as visible as possible. He knew that the Wesmen scouts would report back to Tessaya almost immediately and he wanted them all looking for him.

He'd been at pains to make his Captains understand that an attack could come at any time, at which point they were to scatter in centiles into the forest, heading for their allotted grid positions. They were not to engage on open ground unless absolutely necessary. Indeed, if the Wesmen stayed out, Darrick was happy to develop a stand-off. He had warned of the chaos of forest warfare and of the importance of continued communication along the fragmented front line. He knew it was a gamble but he considered it the only chance they had.

Darrick would have loved to have spoken to the a.s.sembled army but that luxury was denied him by the pressures of time and organisational necessity. Instead, he had impressed very hard on his command team the importance of that which they undertook. Once again, Balaia could not afford for them to fail. Once again, The Raven deserved their unflagging courage and energy. There was no sense in saving themselves for the next fight because failing in this one would mean there were no other fights. Not for them, not for the Wesmen.

The army set off in tight formation, mage a.s.sa.s.sin pairs ahead under CloakedWalks, searching for enemy scouts. In his heart, Darrick knew their task would bear little or no fruit but there was no sense in holding them back; and at the least, they would provide an element of early warning.

They were less than an hour from total chaos in Grethern Forest and he wanted to squeeze out any advantage he had. His regiments marched quickly along the main trail, making good ground towards the Wesmen camp a mile distant. They had travelled less than half distance when a roar like rising thunder grew ahead.

It echoed off the far crags, fell away down the gentle slopes into Grethern and hung above the rise they approached, like a cloud of sound. The Wesmen. And they were charging. Darrick heard the sound of running feet approach and two pairs of mage-a.s.sa.s.sins dropped their Cloaks and appeared near him.

'Wesmen seven hundred yards and running, General,' said one, a willow-framed elf, very tall, bald and dressed in tight-fitting cloth.

'Spread?' asked Darrick.

'Three hundred to three fifty, touching the first north rises and down closing on the first trees south.'

'Thank you.' It was a wide front but nothing more than Darrick had antic.i.p.ated. He a.s.sessed their terrain.

To his left and north, the trail broke into small rocky undulations that cut up to high crag and scree slopes a mile distant. South, the Grethern Forest stood, dark and dense. Its first boles were scattered no more than a hundred yards from them but Darrick's preferred battleground was the thick growth that burgeoned a further two hundred yards distant. He could see the darkness within, could sense the restrictive snags of bough and branch and prayed to all the G.o.ds that he'd made the right decision.

Behind his army, Izack would be leading the Manse relief column south. Now was the time of greatest threat to the plan. Darrick could not afford a single Wesman scout to report the split of the army. Tessaya had to believe he was fighting all of the last Eastern regulars outside of Korina. Mage-a.s.sa.s.sins from Gyernath swept the forest behind and the crags and rises north. It was time to move.

He raised a hand and the order sped down the column to halt. Next, he clenched the raised fist, splayed his fingers and shouted the order to split.

'Centiles, detach, crescent formation by number. Running. Now!'

Slight unevenly, the result of a lack of drill time, the centiles broke formation, cutting away from the main trail in sequence, leaving a strong line defending the trail. Darrick called it a crescent and in his drawings, that's how it appeared. In reality, however, it was a more uneven cascade. He could be nothing less than satisfied that they understood his orders at all.

Darrick nodded his appreciation and set off with his own double centile, angling only slightly from the main trail. He was little more than bait. Acting as running vanguard, he hoped to bring Tessaya's army to the forest before they had a chance to work out the weakness of the defence leading to his camp. They could, he knew, be quickly surrounded but he was relying on the Wesmen desire for battle. And though Tessaya was tactically aware, Darrick remained confident he would see their move into the forest as an attempt to skirt around to the Septern Manse.

Behind him, the army ran down towards the forest, breaking its borders. Orders rang out, centiles switched directions and from the mora.s.s came order as each found its feet and s.p.a.ce from its adjacent centiles. A wall half-bricked and a temptation surely too much for the Wesmen to ignore.

Darrick would not be disappointed.

Ahead of him, the leading Wesmen crested a rise, bellowing out cries as they surveyed the fragmented army below. For a while they gathered, like a dark stain spreading on the near horizon, then a blast from a hundred horns sent them flooding down on the Balaians, their battle cries and chants splitting the air, Tessaya plainly visible at the centre.

For a moment, Darrick considered attacking him but, though he was in the front line, he would be very well defended. And Darrick had better things to do than commit suicide. He took his twin centile and ran for Grethern, the first arrows of the Wesmen falling short.

'Stand ready!' he shouted, seeing his men ranked inside the confines of the forest. 'Fall back three paces. Make them break stride. Mages, fill those gaps.'

The orders were relayed through the forest as the Wesmen swept towards them, no more than half a minute behind. Arrows skipped and snapped against trees and branches, howls and taunts echoing darkly into the depths of the forest. Darrick turned, drew a line in the leaf mould in front of him, his men forming around and behind him.

The sky, brooding and grey, spilled rain, and the wind whipped up beneath the cloud, whistling through the trees. Somewhere, Izack and his men raced to the aid of the Protectors. Darrick watched the Wesmen pour on towards the forest, so far taking the bait laid for them. But the Balaians were outnumbered and would have to work very hard to remain unbroken. It was going to be a long afternoon.

Chapter 34.

Senedai brooded over the reports from his army surrounding the pitifully small band of masked warriors defending the Septern Manse and its gateway to the land of the dragons. As his warriors tired, the enemy seemed to grow in strength. Their movement was smooth, their fighting ordered, like nothing he had ever seen. He knew there was magic involved but he couldn't see where. There was no mage, of that he was now certain.

Yet that hardly mattered. What mattered was what was before his eyes. The bodies of his men covered the ground, in places so thickly that the dead and injured had to be dragged away through the legs of the fighting front line to give them solid ground. And as the afternoon wore on, with the rain increasing in intensity hour by hour, Senedai's desperation increased with it. The enemy left no gaps, the numbers of their dead could be counted on the fingers and toes of a single man; and even though his warriors had injured a good many, they simply melted back from the battle to bind their wounds while others took their place.

Their strength and endurance were extraordinary, their courage something Senedai could admire. But his failure to overwhelm them despite ma.s.sive odds in his favour gnawed at his confidence and at the belief of his men. It should have been a quick victory and yet, with the afternoon waning, he was now faced with returning to his camp as night fell, to face another day of humiliation.

He could force his warriors to fight on by fire and moonlight but somehow those masks would be even more terrifying in shadow. And to fight at night was not the Wesman way, though he had done so at Julatsa. It displeased the spirits. He growled, silently cursed Tessaya's failure to appear, called up more reserves and ordered another push.

Fire bloomed to Darrick's right, the injured Wesmen shrieking in pain, the burning trees casting stark light on the confused battle scene. As the General had hoped, the Wesmen line had been forced to slow and break by the density of trees and the early exchanges had been even as he had foreseen. And with his mages calling FlameOrb, h.e.l.lFire and IceWind from the mana, the Wesmen charge was blunted.

Now, though, the tactics had changed, Tessaya had broken off the frontal attack, sending a sizeable force towards the Balaian encampment and concentrating on an area of Grethern perhaps seventy yards wide, daring his enemy to close ranks. So far, it was a temptation Darrick had been able to resist. He'd quickly reorganised mage teams to prevent flanking and keep the Wesmen line ahead thin, left four centiles in reserve to provide emergency cover and brought in all of his mage a.s.sa.s.sins to maraud outside the flanks.

A barrage of metal on metal had him moving smartly forwards. Ahead, the Wesmen had forced a triple centile back and were pus.h.i.+ng their advantage to the limit. Calling reinforcements to him, Darrick raced in from his overseeing position, too late to save a knot of Balaian swordsmen and mages, caught against a wall of trees and cut to pieces by triumphant Wesmen.

'I want fire behind the front line! First centile right flank, attack at will!' roared Darrick as he crashed into the battle. With veteran swordsmen either side of him and a trio of mages behind, he waded into the Wesmen line, hundreds strong, his blade flas.h.i.+ng down on a defensively placed axe. 'Second centile, mage protection!' The axe was knocked aside and Darrick followed up with a boot to the abdomen and a reverse sword strike to the bowed head.

Left and right, Wesmen were cut down before the main body reacted to the attack. Darrick blocked a thrust with a spear, driving his free forearm into the face of his attacker, splitting his lips and nose. He trod on the spear tip before the Wesman could pick it up and drove his sword through the undefended midriff. Behind the fighting line, howls abruptly cut off, the clatter of metal and the unmistakable sound of shattering ice told of an IceWind ploughing its awful course. Further back, h.e.l.lFire smashed in from the sky. Bodies flew, the explosion of spell on soul battered at the ears and a tattered arm flopped down next to Darrick.

In front of him, his next opponent quailed at the sight and hesitated fatally. Darrick didn't pause and the Wesman was chopped through the side to his spine, the Balaian General feeling his sword score bone, the blood surging on to the gra.s.s.

The Wesmen began to back off. Darrick held his line. They had no need to chase and, with the afternoon light fading quickly in the shrouded forest, they didn't have to hold out too much longer.

We tire. It is understood. Light fades. Lower right quadrant, block, axe. They will not pursue the attack after dusk. Be strong. Strike left, pace back. Rest. Hold the line. Our Given requires it. There will be no failure.

Aeb's limbs protested but he refused to allow the fatigue to show. The Wesmen were ragged. It had been a hard day and their organisation was lacking, their warriors not cycled for maximum efficiency. Yet there were many thousands of them and, despite their lack of victory, still they came on. It was less than two hours until full night and already, with the sky dull and grey, the light was fading fast.

The gloom made no difference to Aeb and his brothers. They had no need of illumination to see the fight. Aeb chopped downwards, cras.h.i.+ng his axe through the shoulder of a tiring Wesman, his blade already positioned to block the blow he knew was coming in from his upper left.

Beside him, a Wesman broke the guard of Oln. The Protector took a savage cut to his right thigh, the enemy axe wrenched clear with a gout of flesh. Oln staggered, unable to maintain balance.

Crouch.

Aeb backhanded his axe across the s.p.a.ce left open by Oln and the Wesman who had so recently tasted victory, tasted violent death instead.

Withdraw. Aeb covers.

Oln half fell backwards. He would not fight again unless the brethren survived to give him strength. Aeb shattered a Wesman skull with the pommel of his blade and turned to his next opponent, mind full of the words of his brothers. They had lost thirty men this day and another fifty were unable to fight on. They would survive the day but would not take another. Aeb had to a.s.sume it would be enough.

Tessaya, Lord of the Paleon Tribes, broke from the forest, axe dripping blood, to take quick reports. The Easterners fought a guerrilla action that he could not fathom, surely having enough strength to meet them head on. The Wesmen met them on a broad front in the trees and on a shorter side across the trail, where the fighting had ebbed and flowed, the Easterners unwilling to move up to force home the advantage they gained early on. It was as if they were waiting for something but Tessaya could not think what. There were no reinforcements coming, of that he was certain.

He shook his head and stared up at the quickly darkening sky. Rain fell on his face and pattered on the ground as it had done almost all day. Away in the forest, fires burned in half a dozen places and he could feel the heat of the closest though he knew it would not last. The rain let nothing last.

His men, b.l.o.o.d.y and brave, had torn away at the Easterners throughout the afternoon, never quite breaking through and never drawing them on to open ground. But the enemy had put up stout resistance and their d.a.m.ned magic made up so much for their apparent lack of numbers.

'What is it they are guarding?' Arnoan, ever at his side, asked the question Tessaya had never asked himself.

'Guarding?' He frowned, and the ice cascaded down his back as realisation snapped through his body. 'How long have we been fighting?'

'Perhaps three hours, my Lord.'

'I am a fool,' he muttered, then raised his voice to a roar. 'Paleon! Disengage! Revion! Hold position! Taranon! Push eastern flank!' He turned to Arnoan, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the old man's collar, drawing his face close. 'Find Adesellere; he's in charge here. He is not to let them after us.'

'What is it, my Lord?'

'Don't you see? Are you blind? Darrick's sent men south to drive around while he occupies us. He's guarding an army that's heading for Senedai. Now go.'

Tessaya sprinted back towards his camp, calling his tribes towards him. They were the only people he could trust now. Taomi had failed and his Liandon Tribes were shattered by Blackthorne. He wasn't even worth a defensive command. Once again, the Paleon held the fortunes of the Wesmen and if he had to run all night to catch the Easterners, that is exactly what he would do.

Darrick lashed a kick into a Wesman knee, felt the bone crumple, hurdled the man whose axe had fallen useless from his hands and ran at the fleeing enemy. Shouts had echoed throughout the battlefield and the Wesmen had pulled away from his section entirely. Their move back towards their own camp had the hallmark of a phased retreat and for a second he was happy to let them go.

But the weight of enemy left in the centre of the line and flooding across the front of the forest to block a chase Tessaya must know they wouldn't mount told a different story.

Darrick stopped his charge and called his twin centile, what was left of it, to a halt.

'He's worked us out,' he said to his Lieutenant. 'We need a tactical withdrawal all the way back to the camp. I think they'll let us go. Find me our best Communion mage. I have to get through to Izack.'

'Sir.' The Lieutenant set off at a run, ducking back into the depths of the forest.

All around Darrick, the fighting was still fierce. FlameOrbs splashed through an area of dense brush to his left, scattering the Wesmen attackers. From either side of the fire, Balaian soldiers poured onto the stunned enemy, swords rising and falling, their dull thuds and occasional clashes telling where they bit. Right, a Wesmen surge had pushed back an isolated centile. As Darrick watched, a mage was felled by an arrow, depriving them of key attack.

'To me!' yelled Darrick, leaping across the charred branch from a fallen tree, his men at his heels. 'FlameOrb the back of the line, we'll take the flank.' He called as he ran.

The Wesmen saw and heard them coming. Arrows whipped through the boughs, one flicking Darrick's hair on its way to bury itself in the eye of a man behind him.

'I need those archers down!' Darrick thudded into the fray, his sword clas.h.i.+ng with a Wesmen axe, sparks flying into the damp air. The General rotated his sword two-handed, loosening his enemy's grip, forced his weapon to the ground, leaned in and b.u.t.ted the man in the face. Blood surged from his nose and he staggered back. Darrick swept his blade up, knocked aside the half-made block and followed up with a straight thrust to the throat.

Over his head, FlameOrbs sailed into the back of the line, splas.h.i.+ng down and spreading mayhem, destroying man and brush alike and putting the shadows to flight. The unearthly orange flame licked at everything within its compa.s.s, sticking to fur and leaf, eating into it until beaten out by flat of axe or leather gauntlet.

The beleaguered centile found renewed strength, stepping forward to take the attack to the Wesmen. To Darrick's left and right, the strikes went in with terrific ferocity, forcing the Wesmen into a desperate defence. Another FlameOrb dropped among them, Darrick split a skull, spraying gore and brain over his victim's companions and the Wesmen broke and ran.

'Leave them,' ordered Darrick. He turned to his centile Captain. 'Stay here, keep this flank free then withdraw slowly at your discretion. Don't chase anyone and keep a Hards.h.i.+eld up.'

'General.' The man nodded and swung round to issue orders. Darrick ran back to the centre of the now much subdued fighting.

'Lieutenant! Where is my mage?'

Hirad's dreams were troubled. Time and again, he awoke with a sense of falling, his heart hammering in his chest and painfully in his throat. And while he slept . . .

Adrift in a vast sea of nothing. Below him, fire laced the land. Calls of pain and anguish flooded his mind and a sense of desperation suffused his wracked body.

He was alone. Last and lost.

Around him, the air was empty. No stars shone though it was dark, no cloud filled the sky. The only light flickered far below. And down there it was dead. He had nowhere to go.

To stay above was to die. So was to move down.

He fell.

'Dreaming again, Hirad?' asked Ilkar from nearby. Night was full, warm and very quiet.

Hirad nodded and sat up. 'Emptiness,' he said. 'I felt I was flying but nothing else was alive.'

'Let's hope it's not prophetic in any way,' said the elf. 'We're all anxious, Hirad. You're not alone in not sleeping.' Ilkar indicated himself. 'Probably best you don't dream, eh?'

Hirad nodded again. 'Easy to say, hard to do. Anyway, I don't think I am. I think it's Sha-Kaan's dream.'

He lay back down, smiling inside at Ilkar's raised eyebrows. This time, the Great Kaan soothed his mind into deep, dreamless sleep.

'd.a.m.n it, I didn't think he'd tumble us. At least not so soon,' said Darrick.

Blackthorne smiled and leaned back in his chair. 'I told you he wasn't stupid,' he said.

The command tent was a beacon of light in a darkening camp in which Darrick had forbidden all but vital fire light to give the Wesmen as little sight of them as possible. Dusk was upon them, the Balaians had been allowed to withdraw and an uneasy calm had settled over the camp.

The Wesmen had stationed a hefty presence a respectful distance from their borders and were clearly unwilling to move in, fearful without their Lord to drive them.

Darrick had sent mages out to check the surrounding numbers. The Wesmen covered the main trail, the forest and crags with squads and scouts but had chosen not to encircle the Balaians. Their remit was clear enough.

The only good news was that Izack had not planned on stopping until within striking distance of Senedai's forces. He would however, have to move to a different position than planned in an effort to avoid Tessaya.

'How many will he take with him?' asked Darrick.

'Well,' said Blackthorne. 'From your reports, Tessaya was separating his forces along tribal lines. The Paleon are numerous though they'll have taken casualties both in the battle for Understone and today. Even so, if he takes them all, it could be as many as four thousand.'

Darrick gaped and his body felt hot. 'Izack'll be slaughtered.'

'Not unless Tessaya finds him,' reasoned Gresse.

'He won't be hard to spot once he starts fighting,' said Darrick grimly. He pa.s.sed a hand over his face, seeing his plan collapse. 'What a shambles. We can't waste time taking them on here, there's no point. Look . . . How dense is the cover crag-side?' He looked over to where a pair of his mage a.s.sa.s.sins awaited his next order.

'Not as dense as in the forest, sir,' said one, scratching at two days' growth of stubble. 'We could clear it a little.' He smiled slightly.

'You'd have to clear it a lot to make a difference to our route,' Darrick said, seeing the man get his train of thought.

'There are eight of us,' said the a.s.sa.s.sin. 'Anything is possible. They don't have cross-reporting, they are merely expected to shout if they see anything.'

'Make them unable to shout, will you?' asked Darrick.