Urey was once bright flowers lining blue lakes, marble and gold, laughter and love. We came into fire, death, and desolation. The armies of the night had already passed on, leaving nothing but black ashes and emptiness.
Still-terrified peasants said the Numantian Army had stumbled out of Sulem Pass, with the ravening hordes of Maisir close behind. The Maisirians had been told by their king and court magician that Numantia was theirs to do with as they wished. The tales of atrocity were heartrending, unlistenable. But as my guts churned in rage and revulsion, a cool part of me reminded that we’d done no better when we invaded Maisir. What else could be expected?
But how had our army moved so fast? I’d expected it still to be entangled in Kait, slowly being butchered by the Men of the Hills. We found a wounded soldier who’d fallen behind and somehow not been captured by the Maisirians.
Oswy had declared itself an open city, which had done no good at all. Our army, beyond mercy, beyond the law, had torn it apart, taking everything when it had nothing. They left the city in flames, its streets filled with the torn bodies of innocents, and marched on north.
By the time they reached Kait, they’d heard from their officers and warrants what they could really expect from the Men of the Hills, and were ready for the worst. But nothing happened. There’d been only isolated ambushes by small groups of bandits. Most of the hillmen were afraid to face so big a force, even one as ruined as the army.
The soldier said he’d heard stories that the ruler of Kait, some pig named Fergle or Foogle, had been killed, and a new man sat the throne, and the hill tribes were frantically making new alliances, settling old feuds, and had no time for outsiders.
Achim Baber Fergana, my old enemy, had finally met someone more ruthless, more cunning?
Who … And then a strange thought struck and I knew, without any facts, who his assassin had been, and knew what Yonge’s last favor was to the army he’d served.
I grinned. Yonge would make a very good achim for Kait, and give the Men of the Hills more than enough to concern themselves with instead of raiding Numantia or Maisir. Or perhaps he’d lead the raids himself.
Anyway, the soldier went on, when they’d reached Kait’s main city — Sayana, I told him it was named — its gates were closed, and when the emperor ordered them opened, there came nothing but mocking laughter. There was no time to mount a siege, for the Maisirians were in close pursuit, and so our army went on through Sulem Pass into Urey.
“I heard we wuz supposed to make for th’ river, where there’d be reinforcements. But they wuz on our butts through th’ pass, then cut around us, usin’ Negaret, an’ took Renan, I think it’s called. We went west, intendin’ to hook around ‘em, an’ come back t’ th’ river further north.
“But I took this spear when we wuz bringin’ some cattle back, crawled away, an’ dunno what’s happening now.”
Both armies then were north of us, deeper into Numantia.
I summoned my officers and told them we had one duty: to rejoin the army as fast as we could, bypassing the Maisirians. Sooner or later, we’d be able to link up with the emperor.
Perhaps he was the demon king. But I remembered my oath, and that invaders were laying waste to my land, and that was a rock in a tempestuous sea for this drowning man. I would, I must, hold true. My officers, warriors all, didn’t argue. Their units had been stationed in Urey, and it was considered by most their home, and they wanted revenge. The Maisirians had to be stopped, or else all Numantia would be like Urey — ashes and despair.
We moved north, and we were no better than the Maisirians, except we didn’t murder or rape. Stand against us and you met the sword. We took what we needed as we went: horses, and eventually we were all mounted; food, until we were all fed; clothes, and we were clean once more. There was nothing to be done about our haunted eyes that had seen too much death and our weary bodies that’d done too much killing. All of us realized that the only peace we’d know would be death.
At least most of us, those of us who were regulars. But there were those who weren’t, and each night some would slip away. Domina Bikaner wanted to send out patrols to bring back and hang a few deserters for an example. I forbade it. Let them seek out their homes, far from war and blood, I thought, and wished them luck.
There would be a great battle to come, and why would we want the fainthearted, the cowardly? There was no room for anything but the most carefully forged steel.
• • •
Wars — armies — have a certain sound, a certain smell. Blood, fire, even fear have scents. We’d left Urey, and were riding through the poor farming province of Tagil. Smoke pillared in the skies, and we were very close, and rode farther east, then hard north, and then west, looping in a wide semicircle around the Maisirian Army.
My scouts were challenged by Numantians, even more ragged, more weary, more desperate than we were. We’d rejoined our brothers, and reached safety. Such as it was.
• • •
“I should have guessed Damastes the Fair would find a way around those bastards,” Tenedos said, trying to sound hearty. “So Yonge’s smuggler’s route is passable for soldiers, eh? That’ll be useful when we invade Maisir next year or the year after.”
It was good the emperor was babbling nonsense, for it gave me a moment to cover the shock. I thought I was battered by time. But I was nothing compared to the emperor. He was only a few years older than I, but looked as if he were of another generation. His black hair was almost gone on top, and the round face I’d once thought boyish was lined, harsh.
His eyes still blazed, but they were different, a disturbing gleam to them.
“Yes, sir. I’ve four hundred fifty cavalry. What’s left of the Seventeenth, Twentieth, and Tenth. I’ll be frank, sir. We’re not in good shape, but we’re in better mettle than the soldiers we saw riding through the camp.”
“Good. For the great battle that’ll send those ants scurrying back to their hill is close.” He forced a smile, and the corner of his mouth twitched a little. “Since you’re being realistic, I’ll do the same. This battle will settle everything. Either the Maisirians and Bairan will be destroyed, or we will.
“It’s that simple. They have the numbers, but we have the spirit. We’re fighting for freedom now. I know my soldiers will put every bit of their soul, their blood into play.”
His words sounded less as if they came from the heart than like tired phrases he’d used again and again until they had no meaning at all for him, and therefore none for his audiences. No wonder the army appeared so dispirited if this was the best their emperor could do.
“Spirit’s all well and good,” I said. “But it’s generally swords, and how many of them there are, that win battles.”
“Swords, yes. Or magic. There’s our greatest secret strength, for when we fight them next, I have a weapon that will utterly destroy the Maisirians. They won’t be able to retreat, but must either surrender where they stand or die.”
I wondered how much of our blood this secret magic would require, pushed that thought away, and asked for a briefing on where everyone was positioned.
“One thing before that,” he said. “Remember I told you before that once we reached Renan I must leave the army for a time and return to Nicias? That still holds true, even though those traitors were suppressed. I don’t want to do it, but I must, to guarantee a final triumph that will ensure the safety of Numantia for all time.”
I made no response, but he didn’t seem to require one. He called Domina Othman and led me to another tent, where a huge, newly drawn map lay across three pushed-together tables looted from farmhouses. He told the other staff officers to leave, then told me our situation. It was grim. We had no more than a hundred thousand men ready to fight.
I didn’t hear what he said next, for my world rocked about me. We’d lost how many men in Maisir? Two million? More, counting replacements? Gods. Even if Tenedos’s secret weapon worked, and we destroyed the Maisirians, it would be generations before Numantia recovered.
I forced myself back to the present as Othman continued. Some reinforcements had come in, marching overland from Amur, but they were hastily formed units of fresh recruits and the training depots’ cadre.
“There’re more, though,” the emperor interjected. “I’ve heard there’re at least ten Guard Corps from all across Numantia who assembled at Nicias and sailed upriver to Amur. Link up with them, and that’ll give the army a new backbone, and after that there’ll be even more reinforcements, once our lines to the river are reopened. So Amur and the Latane must be our obvious immediate goal.
“We’ll break through the Maisirians, let them chase and not catch us, which they’re good at, then turn and destroy them at the Latane.”
I stared at the map without replying. The army held hasty positions just north of the small, now-ruined trading city of Cambiaso. Amur’s border was about twenty miles distant, but then it was a hundred miles to the Latane River.
And the Maisirian Army was between.
I wondered where these Guard Corps, over a hundred thousand men if they were at full strength, had come from. Tenedos had stripped Numantia almost bare for the invasion, and all new units had been fed into that cauldron as soon as they were formed. Did these units really exist? Perhaps there’d been a great rush to the colors, and various border units had been amalgamated and given Guard designation to bolster their morale. I wanted, I needed, to believe this.
I returned to the map.
The emperor wanted another frontal attack for his breakthrough. That appeared suicidal. But farther south was wasteland, near-desert, except for a great semicircular series of peaks on rising ground, nearly ten miles from horn to horn.
“Sir,” I suggested. “Instead of striking straight into the Maisirians, what prevents us from feinting north, as if we’re moving into the desert, then hitting their flank while they’re organizing to come after us? Hit it hard enough, knock it back, and in the confusion we’ll have at least a day, maybe more, to break contact. They’ve got to be almost as exhausted as we are.”
“No,” Tenedos said firmly. “We can’t do that. Not now. Not the way the army is. We don’t have the strong backbone we used to. I left too many of my best tribunes and generals, my best thrusters, on the suebi.
“The confusion would be too much, and the Maisirians would smash us while we were moiling about.
“My army will fight, though, and fight hard, if we give them a target. That’s what we’re giving them, right in front of them, something to smash at, smash at hard, and once they break through, break into open country, then the river’s in front of them — the river, home, and the end of the war!”
Tenedos’s eyes were searing, willing me to believe. But the map was there, too, with its hundred miles of scrubland before the Latane.
“What magic will you use?”
“Once the battle is joined, there will be awesome spells, dreadful demons sent against the Maisirians. But I want to make sure their War Magicians are fully involved before we cast our spells.”
I realized I didn’t believe a word he’d said. Yes, there’d be magic. But only after a great deal of blood was shed. And the army, like a sickly man, had little to give before complete collapse. “Sir, I think — ”
Tenedos’s face colored. “That’s enough, Tribune! Perhaps you’ve been on your own too long, and forget you must obey orders like any other soldier! I’ve given my instructions, and my plans are well under way.
“Now, I have other matters to attend to. My staff will brief you thoroughly as to your role.”
He gave me a harsh look, didn’t wait for a response, but hurried from the tent. My temper flashed. I certainly didn’t need him to remind me I was a soldier, and that soldiers obeyed orders. Hadn’t I brought nearly four hundred men through impassable terrain, and — I forced my mind and anger back under control. There wasn’t time for infighting. The emperor had made his plan, and it was not a good one. But it was the one which must be followed.
“Domina Othman,” I said. “You heard the emperor.”
• • •
The attack was even more disastrous than I’d feared. The Guard units had barely left our positions when Maisirian infantry struck, twin-pronged like snake fangs, and stopped them cold. Solid waves of Maisirians counterattacked and sent the assault formations reeling back. The Maisirians didn’t stop at our front lines, but attacked all along our front line.
We fell back and back, out of our positions, and in two days of brutal fighting, most confused and hand-to-hand, we were driven almost into the desert. But we stopped with that nameless rock formation at our backs, counterattacked, and stopped the Maisirians. Before, we would have hit them again — before they recovered — broken them in half, and had a great victory.
But all we’d done was buy a bit of time, and lost twenty thousand men and our positions.
As for the emperor’s magic — nothing happened, except the usual minor spells of confusion and fear, which only the rankest private would let affect him.
• • •
“Very well,” the emperor said grimly, “we are in disastrous straits.”
The tribunes in his tent were silent. There was nothing to be said.
“But we are not, I repeat not, doomed. In fact, now we are able to utterly destroy the Maisirians. There is a Great Spell I used once before. Some of you older soldiers may know it, for it was the one I used against Chardin Sher to destroy his rebels and win Numantia.”
I started. Yonge’s prediction would come true, and the monstrous demon would rise from this desert to wreak havoc once more.
“This spell is costly,” he went on. “But we paid its price once — and we must be willing to pay it again.”
His next words were lost in my shock. It had taken all this blood, all this slaughter, the loss of an entire generation of Numantia’s finest youth, for that one moment of destruction? What would be the demon’s price now?
“It will take three days, perhaps more, to assemble the … forces for this spell. Tell your units we’re getting ready for battle. Do not mention what I told you.
“Our battle plan will be very simple. Once the … force has been unleashed, after it’s wreaked its destruction, then we shall attack. All that will be necessary is to mop up the few remnants of their army, so there’s no need for elaborate tactics.
“General of the Armies á Cimabue will command the physical attack, for I shall be unable, for various reasons, to lead you myself for a time. I’ll caution you on one matter, and this you should pass along to your troops. Until their War Magicians have been silenced, the Maisirians may try all sorts of deceptions. Therefore, obey only Tribune á Cimabue or myself, and obey us absolutely, no matter what we order. I have wards around myself, and will cast equal ones for the tribune, so no false image may be summoned. Remember this well.
“Be of good heart, of good cheer, gentlemen. This is our greatest hour, this is when we are almost gods. We hold the fate of millions in our hands — those already born, and those who’ve not yet come from the Wheel.
“This shall be the deciding moment, and only one great nation shall go forward into the bright future.
“Numantia!” His voice rose into a shout: “Now and forever! Numantia and Tenedos!”
The tribunes, wounded, battle-weary, cheered wildly, and it seemed the entire army cheered with them.
• • •
If I’d been in command of the Maisirian Army, I would have attacked us immediately, giving no chance to recover. Perhaps King Bairan was afraid of the casualties he’d take, storming the heights we held, or perhaps he needed time to regroup — he was fighting a long way from his homeland, with long supply lines and in a desolate country. But his troops were more used to hardship than ours.
Regardless of the reasons, the Maisirians, vastly outnumbering us, only half-surrounded our rocky citadel, leaving the dry plains behind us free of their forces. It seemed as if they were preparing a siege, planning to starve us out.
I made sure our positions were properly outposted, so we’d have warning if the Maisirians struck first, then made endless rounds, cheering some, cursing others, reminding them what they fought for and that this would be the greatest battle of history, secretly dreading the day.
But what else could Tenedos have done? Surrender? I saw no other way. Numantia would have another horrible debt with demons, one far greater than the last. And that was if we won. What would happen if the azaz and his War Magicians cast a spell greater than the emperor’s? What would happen then?
I caught myself. That was impossible. The emperor was the most powerful magician in the world. His mistakes in Maisir happened because he underestimated the enemy, as did the army. I was certain no such arrogance existed any more.
The emperor’s headquarters was a bustle of Chare Brethren, and tribunes and generals concerned with temporal matters were snapped at and sent to me. I hoped the wizards were successful in camouflaging our plan, and that the azaz was as complacent as we’d been long ago.
On the morning of the third day, I was about to make another set of rounds, then caught myself. I was like a young legate, so worried about his first command he spends endless hours harrying them, and, instead of turning them into better soldiers, makes them into twitching wrecks.
I ordered my own plans for the day of battle. I’d ride at the head of the cavalry once again. My handful of Red Lancers, augmented with the rest of the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers, would have the honor of riding at the fore.
Late that afternoon Domina Othman came, and said the attack would begin two hours after dawn the next day. By dusk, Numantia’s fate would be settled.
• • •
I forced myself to sleep from two hours before midnight until perhaps an hour afterward, then woke. I lay there, feeling the army stir around me, flexing its thews.
I remembered a little prayer I’d said as a child, a prayer to Tanis, our family’s godling. It was like the prayers most babes are taught by their mothers, to give them strength in the loneliness of the night and to make them think of the welfare of others instead of themselves.
I whispered the words, although what good a small jungle deity like Tanis could bring on this battlefield, when gods as mighty as Saionji and Isa, her manifestation, would stalk the land, and demons carry out wizards’ terrible commands, was beyond me.
I got up and dressed. I’d washed and shaved before I lay down, and put on clean, almost dry underclothing I’d scrubbed out myself the afternoon before. I remembered the vast wardrobes I’d once had, and ruefully looked at my possessions. I donned the cleaner of my two shirts, this one as red as my Lancers’ tunics, laced on a boiled leather vest battle-stained almost black, and tucked that into tight black breeches that matched the boots someone had polished until they almost glowed, as if they were new, and the worn-through soles wouldn’t be seen. For armor I wore only a breastplate and my helmet, whose roached plume was beginning to shed.
I buckled on my sword belt, a straight blade on one side and Yonge’s silver dagger on the other.
I went to my command tent and once more went over the map. I studied the latest patrol reports on the enemy dispositions. There were no changes, so the Maisirians had not been alerted. I hoped.
It was close to dawn when Domina Othman rushed into the tent, and for the first time since I’d known the always-calm, always-prescient aide, he was clearly rattled. He stammered that the emperor wanted me, must see me immediately! I must come at once!
What could have happened? Had the Maisirians learned of his spell? Or perhaps, magic being what it was, would he be unable to summon that dreadful thing from wherever it laired?
A terrified captain of the Lower Half, his uniform torn and travel-stained, stumbled out of the emperor’s tent as I approached.
As I came in, Tenedos sent a brazier spinning, its smoldering incenses scattering unheeded. Another brazier, a single broad flame rising motionless from its center, sat in the middle of an elaborately inscribed figure drawn in blood-red chalk. I remembered that figure — I’d drawn a simpler version of it again and again before I climbed the walls of Chardin Sher’s stronghold, chalked it one final time on the stone inside, then poured a potion and fled for my life as the demon came into our world.
The emperor’s field desk and chair were overturned, and ancient scrolls and musty books thrown about, hurled in blind rage.
I clapped my boot heels, snapped as perfect a salute as I’d ever managed as a prospective legate at the lycée. “Sir! First Tribune Damastes á Cimabue.”
“Those bastards! Shitheels! Traitors! Back-stabbers!” he raved.
I held my silence, and looked at Othman, who was as broken as the emperor. Tenedos went to a sideboard and picked up a crystal decanter of brandy. He found a glass, unstoppered the decanter, then, rage boiling once more, hurled it against a map cabinet. The crystal shattered, brandy sprayed into the brazier, and perfumed flames shot up.
He fought for control, found it, and turned to me. “That man who left,” he said, quite calmly, “is a brave officer. He’s ridden all the way from Amur, from the Guard’s depot. Killed three horses on the way. How he managed to snake through the Maisirian positions I don’t know. But thank Saionji he did. We’ve been betrayed, Damastes, betrayed by those we’re fighting for!”
Scopas and Barthou had learned from their first failure. Somewhere outside Nicias, they’d made careful plans that included real soldiery. They’d used any and all troops they could rally, units evidently terrified they’d be sent south to be torn apart in the grinder.
They’d marched on Nicias, and there wasn’t a Guard Corps at hand to save the day. Trusted units garrisoning the capital mutinied and joined the revolt. The final blow, Tenedos said, was that this time the commoners had listened to the simple message Scopas and Barthou were preaching: Peace now, peace at any price. Surrender to the Maisirians, give them what they want so they’ll leave Numantia. Bring down the usurper Tenedos and his people, for they’ve ruined Numantia with their insane war against a former good neighbor. Peace now, peace forever!
This had happened a week ago. Somehow the traitors had sealed off the river, and no word of the catastrophe came south. In that time they’d sent heliographs to other province capitals.
“Who knows what else they promised, what they threatened, what they said,” Tenedos said. “By the time the news reached Amur, half my provinces were in open revolt. I suppose more have joined by now.”
I was appalled. To be so betrayed was inconceivable. Without asking permission, I picked up Tenedos’s chair and slumped into it.
“What now?” I finally managed.
The emperor and I stared at each other. Again I saw the corner of his mouth twitch. “I know what to do,” he said, his voice a bit shaky. Then it firmed. “In fact, what just happened makes the decision even easier.
“Othman!”
“Sir!”
“Make sure my Brethren are aroused and ready! I shall be needing their services within the hour. Now leave us. There are still some secrets I can’t share even with you.” Othman saluted, and hurried out.
Tenedos smiled, a smile that was purely evil. “I have all of the devices, spells, herbs assembled to summon the demon that brought doom to Chardin Sher. All I need do is call the Chare Brethren, give them certain parts of the spell that’ll prepare the ground, and I’ll perform the rest of the ceremony.
“This day we’ll destroy not one, but two of Numantia’s enemies — one who attacks from without, the other who bores from within. The demon shall be called, and given permission to savage the Maisirians, as I’d planned. Then I’ll grant him greater pleasure, and give him Nicias.
“I mentioned the cost of this summoning. What Scopas and Barthou have done is make it far cheaper, at least cheaper for honest Numantians.
“I shall give the demon Nicias,” he repeated. “Let him do to that great city what he did to Chardin Sher’s rocky citadel. Tear stone from stone until the City of Light explodes! Let him take everyone — men, women, babes — for his own, and let the raging fire consume anyone or anything he scorns. Let him tear the land so no one can live there again and it becomes a swamp darker than any in the Maisirian wilderness.
“Let Nicias become an example for future generations, who’ll pass by the wasteland, home only to monsters and decay, and know what the price is to stand against the Seer Tenedos, the Emperor Tenedos!”
The emperor’s voice had risen and gone shrill, and his eyes glazed as he raved. He calmed himself. “Yes. That is what we’ll do. I know how to keep the demon from returning to his own plane. Before, I was worried about losing control, and so arranged that blue lightning that sent him back to his home of dark flames.
“Not now. Not this time. This time, I’ll keep him here, and woe to anyone who stands against me, for they’ll meet the same fate as the Maisirians, as the scum traitors of Nicias!
“After he destroys Nicias, we’ll reach out once more. We’ll retake Numantia, Maisir, then on, seizing lands no Numantian has known. We’ll let the demon, and others I’ll learn about, become our assault divisions, and few Numantian lives will be spent. The creature’s pay will be the souls of those conquered, and when the land is empty, we’ll resettle it with our own!
“Then, Damastes, we’ll have real power. There’ll be no need for altars, for prayers to fickle goddesses who betray you when they wish. I promised once, my friend, you and I would bestride the world.
“Thanks to Bairan, thanks to the azaz, full thanks to those bastards in Nicias, for they’ve opened a new way for me — for us — a way it perhaps would have taken us years to see, more years to have the courage to grasp.
“Desperate times breed desperate measures, don’t they? They also breed greatness.
“They breed gods!”
His face was glowing, and the years had dropped away, and he looked as he had the day we met, long ago, in Sulem Pass, surrounded by bodies.
But now his eyes carried the fires of madness, not power.
He held out his hands, to seal the bargain. I rose, held out mine, and he came forward.
I hit him once, very hard, just below the chin. He dropped without a sound.
I made sure he was unconscious, then rummaged through his magical chests until I found strong cord. I tied the emperor’s hands and feet, gagged and blindfolded him, then hid his body in the rear of the tent, in his private sleeping area, pulling sleeping furs over him. I was crying soundlessly all the while, nearly blinded by my tears.
I fed the books piled near the symbol into the flaming brazier, and it ate without a flare the dark knowledge Tenedos had worked so hard to obtain. Then the set out herbs and materials were cast into the fire. I scrubbed at the red chalked symbol until it was gone.
I saw a flagon, uncorked it, and the stench of that same potion I’d poured out in Chardin Sher’s castle came back. I put the flagon in my sabertache and left the tent.
I ran to my horse, pulled myself into the saddle, and kicked my mount into a hard gallop. Somewhere in the gray dawn, I uncorked the flagon and hurled it as far away from me as I could.
Captain Balkh was waiting outside my tent.
“Alert the buglers,” I ordered. “Sound the attack!”
• • •
We rode out from our lines at the trot, bugles singing bright songs of death. Drums thundered, and the infantry, crouched in their positions, came to their feet and charged into the open, cheering.
I signaled, and the bugles called again, and we went to the gallop, Red Lancers in the fore, behind me all that was left of the proud host that had ridden across the border so long ago, a steel-tipped lance now aimed for the heart of Maisir.
Our banners, all the colors of Numantia, rippled in the morning breeze as we rode, and the thunder of our horses’ hooves was louder than drums.
I looked back, and my vision blurred, seeing the great army of Numantia I’d spent my life serving, building, and commanding go forward — never hesitating, terrible under its banners — into its last battle.
I felt blood rage, let it build.
We smashed through the Maisirian lines as if there were no one against us, going hard for the center of their army. Men rose in front of me and were cut down screaming, and we smashed on, killing everything in our way.
I felt a flicker of foolish hope that there was a chance we might carry the day, that the Maisirians might break and run. We crushed their second and third lines, and before us was their headquarters.
Then we were hit from the flank by line after line of elite infantry, to whom a man on a horse was an easy target, not a figure of terror. They ducked under our lances and went for our horses. Other soldiers were in front, holding firm, and our charge was broken, and all was a swirling whirlwind of stabbing, slashing, killing, dying men.
Ahead of me, not a hundred yards away, were huge, lavishly colored tents, flags floating over them. Here was the king, and I shouted to the Lancers to follow me, and we pushed on, foot by bloody foot.
Then the demons came from nowhere. They were horrible insects, scarabs perhaps, larger than a horse. But, terribly, they bore above their slashing mandibles the faces of men, and I gasped, recognizing, even through the bloody eyes of battle, one.
Myrus Le Balafre.
I heard someone else scream, as he knew another monster’s countenance, and then I saw Mercia Petre’s solemn face. I hope in the name of all the gods that these were just devices the azaz had summoned to terrify us, and he’d not been able to call the souls of these men back from the Wheel. I cannot believe Saionji would let anyone usurp her domain so.
One horror slashed at my horse, nearly severing its head, and it reared and sent me sprawling. I rolled to my feet, and the horror loomed over me, snapping with its scissorslike jaws, and I lunged, burying my sword in its body. It collapsed, snapping at the wound as I pulled my blade free, and howled, an eerie high screech, and green ichor sprayed me, and then it was motionless.
“They can be killed,” I shouted, and saw one rip Captain Balkh nearly in half as Curti sent an arrow into the center of its human face.
The azaz’s magic was almost as deadly for his own soldiers, striking as much terror into them as it did us, and they were yelling in panic and running. Another monster came, and Svalbard cut two legs from under it, drove his long sword through its carapace, and it, too, died.
Three men attacked, one armed with an ax, and I opened his guts for him, ducked the sword thrust of the second, and hacked his side open. The third screamed and ran.
There was no one close then except a pair of wounded, dying demons, and I ran for the flag-draped tents, hearing my breath rasp in my lungs, hardly realizing I was muttering that childish prayer to Tanis.
I saw a man standing in the doorway to a tent. He wore dark robes and held a strange wand, not solid as every other one I’d seen, but made of twisted silver, woven like tree branches.
The azaz.
Everything in the world vanished, and I was moving toward him, and all was very slow, very blurry. His wand moved, and a demon came from nowhere, and it had Alegria’s face. But I was beyond life, beyond caring, and my sword had come back for a thrust, when one of Curd’s arrows thudded into the demon’s body and it snapped at the shaft, and was gone.
Again the azaz’s wand moved, but I was closer, still not within sword striking distance. I think I was still running, but perhaps not.
My free hand, without my willing it, fumbled at my belt, and Yonge’s wedding gift, the silver dagger that had killed far more than its share, came out of its sheath, and I hurled it underhand. The blade turned lazily in midair, then took the azaz just under his ribs, and he contorted, screaming, and his scream filled my life, my world, with joy, and I thought I could hear Karjan laugh as well, from wherever Saionji had cast him. The wizard’s face was agonized, and my sword went into his open mouth and he was dead.
Again hope shot through me, and I turned.
“Now the king,” I bellowed, but there were only three men behind me. I saw Curti down with a spear through his thigh, not moving, and a scatter of dead or dying Lancers amid a welter of bodies.
But there was Bikaner, Svalbard, and another man, a Lancer I didn’t know. All were blood- and ichor-drenched, but all bore that same twisted death-giving, death-embracing smile I knew was on my own face.
I went for what must have been King Bairan’s tent, and there were two men, big men, bigger even than Svalbard, coming. I blocked the first’s slash, but the second man’s lunge cut me along the ribs.
Svalbard slashed, and the man’s head bounced free, then Svalbard turned to me, his expression that of a child, wondering why he hurt, what had struck him, and I saw he no longer had an arm, but a stub that sprayed blood.
He fell, and there was only Domina Bikaner and myself, and there were many men around us, and all wore the brown of Maisir.
Bikaner killed two more, and then an arrow grew from his chest, and he shouted and fell.
An instant later hot pain took me from behind, and I stumbled. But there was a Maisirian still alive in front of me, and just behind him I knew I would see King Bairan, and take him with me.
But my sword was far too heavy to lift, and the pain was fire roaring over me, and I stumbled, feeling another sword bite into my side.
Then there was nothing at all.