DragonCrown Saga - The Grand Crusade Part 33

Unfortunately for them, once their locations had been isolated, Perrine or another of the Gyrkyme could hit the place with a firec.o.c.k. Just like the flaming munitions used at Fronosa against the Aurolani, these oil-filled pieces of pottery exploded in a shower of flaming fluid when the Gyrkyme dropped them. Once a draconetteer nest had started burning, the soldiers outside waited for their enemies to run, or let them roast.

It had taken almost until dawn to clear the town. Alexia's eyes burned from fatigue and smoke. She rode back from Merysval toward her camp, slowly pa.s.sing weary and bloodstained soldiers heading in the same direction. Beyond them lay the battlefield. As much as she wanted to look away from it, she could not, because she knew that the field would be a testament to how she had handled the battle.

That there were far more Aurolani dead than southern troops was a good sign, of that she had no doubt.

Out there, across the plain, in little hollows and on little hills, bodies had been mounded. A small heap surrounded an Aurolani standard that leaned crookedly against bodies. She could imagine how gibberers had tried to raise it again, and how her people went after it in a back-and-forth battle that left the dead piled around what was now just a broken stick.

The white-furredkryalniricorpses were easy to pick out. Most of them had been slain at close range by arrows, with a few others dead by magick or more mundane and close-up methods.Allof the corpses had been beheaded, however. Thekryalnirihad been very difficult to kill in the past, and within the army a story started that suggested they could not truly die, so men systematically decapitated them. The heads would be buried at a crossroads and the bodies would be burned.

Most of the rest of the Aurolani would be left for carrion birds and packs of feral dogs. Vultures had already congregated on a h.o.a.rgoun's nose, picking at his eyes and lips. She watched, both fascinated and revolted, then wondered if, on her way back to Saporicia, she would find the h.o.a.rgoun's bones picked clean and bleached by the sun, still where they lay.

Soldiers moved throughout the battlefield, looking for comrades, bringing water to the wounded, or dispatching the wounded enemy. There was no pa.s.sion in killing the Aurolani, just efficiency. It was less mercy than expedience, and a desire to stop their cries. Everyone knew they would have given no mercy to the southerners, so none was shown to them.

Other men and women moved across the battlefield, picking over the corpses for any valuables. They were not the folk of Merysval, but camp followers who had come out from Bacirro. Soldiers shooed them away from their own comrades, but many of the mercenary companies had no such sense of loyalty. For their part, the camp followers pointed out the living in hopes of a reward.

Crow came riding up from Merysval and reined in beside her. Smoke had smudged his face and blood had spattered one cheek. His silverwood bow rode in its saddle scabbard, but his quiver was empty. His sword, Hand, had seen limited action in the darkness.

"It looks as if your initial suspicions were accurate," he said. "There were many people trapped in the buildings that were fired. Out to the northeast, in a gully they used for dumping their refuse, there are a lot more bodies."

Alexia nodded slowly. "Any indication if the people were alive when the fires were lit?"

He shook his head. "Apparently not. Out in the midden the bones showed signs of having been gnawed.

In a couple of the larger houses, the kitchens had big soup pots boiling and ovens with meat roasting.

There's little question what happened to the people of Merysval."

"All along the roads we've found the remains of refugees in a similar state. Why would the people of Merysval be any different?"

"We had to hope, didn't we?"

"That's all we have." Alexia's stomach tightened. The Aurolani had been living off the land. She had no idea if they ate manflesh by preference, or just considered it when horse, cow, sheep, goat, and pig were all consumed. Cat, too, for that matter. They didn't seem to like dogs, though she supposed the gibberers viewed themselves as closer to dogs than they did humans.

There had been no keeping the news of the consumption of human flesh a secret from the troops, and their reactions had been odd. The Alcidese soldiers, because of their tradition of ancestor worship, did all they could to make sure their dead were removed from the battlefield as fast as possible and buried well enough that the scavengers wouldn't get them. Others, including some of the Nybali mercenaries, would roast themselves a gibberer or vylaen in recompense. They freely offered the meat around, but few partook. Many others did butcher fallen frostclaws and consume them, but the most common action was to make sure the remains of those who had been eaten were burned in the hopes the fires would clean their remains of any Aurolani taint.

Just thinking about being devoured made Alexia shiver. There was a large difference between being bitten in combat and actually consumed. Biting in a fight she understood. It was desperate and yet brave at the same time, a savage and intimate attack. Consumption, however, was yet more intimate and, at the same time, irreverent. While she had heard Nybali shamans talk about how they were drawing the essence of the enemy into them, she rejected the idea. She felt it was just the ultimate insult: once you'd killed the enemy, you chewed him up and, in the end, reduced him to a stinking pile of excrement.

Riding up to her tent, Alexia dismounted and tossed the reins to a squire. The man likewise took the reins to Crow's horse and led the two of them away. Warriors at the flap of her tent snapped to attention. She acknowledged them with a brief salute, then entered.

The flap fell behind Crow, and it took a moment for Alexia's eyes to adjust to the darkness. She started, for over in the far left corner, Maroth seemed to materialize out of shadows. He stood there, unmoving and decidedly inanimate.

Crow rested hands on her shoulders. "I don't think I'll ever get used to his doing that."

"No, but I'm not inclined to complain." Alexia frowned. Maroth had not actually traveled with them from Fronosa. When last she saw him, he'd been standing in the corner of the room where he had appeared at her father's bidding. His chest had closed again and the scratches made on him by Myrall'mara had vanished. She'd left guards on the room and told them no one was to be admitted there without her express permission.

But that night, when her tent had been erected on the road, Maroth was there in his corner. So it had been on the road, and when she'd entered Merysval during the fighting, he lurked in shadows. Maroth had killed onekryalniribefore it could cast a spell at her, and had taken one draconette blast in the chest.

She wasn't sure how many other Aurolani creatures he'd killed, but the predilection of a.s.sa.s.sins to go sneaking about in shadows definitely put them at a disadvantage when he was around.

Alexia turned around and gathered Crow into a fierce hug, then stepped back and unbuckled her sword belt. "Was that battle too easy?"

"The glib answer would be not if you are the Aurolani. They lost over three regiments." Crow removed his sword belt, then pulled daggers from the tops of his boots. "You're thinking that Chytrine orchestrated this battle, this loss, much as she did the loss of Okrannel. She wants us overconfident and she wants you believing things will go as they have in your dreams."

"Right, the dreams Ididn't have."

"That may be what she intended, but your dream didn't involve fighting in the town, did it?"

Alexia shook her head, then doffed her coat of mail and let it rustle into a puddle at her feet. "No, in my dream we freed the town and the townsfolk were happy. This is more the sort of ending that Adrogans reported about Svoin."

"I was thinking the same thing. It makes me wonder if Nefrai-kesh is now in command of the defending forces, and if he wanted to send us a signal. If he wanted to let us know that, no matter how bad it's been before, it will get worse?"

Alexia considered that for a moment, then frowned. "He's a curious one. Your memoir makes it quite clear Lord Norrington was a very good tactician. Throwing away three regiments is not a wise thing."

"I agree, which means he must have more troops coming in. That would coincide with your a.s.sumption that Chytrine is using your dreams against you and will ambush you down the line."

She raised an eyebrow. "But if we follow that line of logic, then he should not have sent the message that suggests he has more troops, and he should not have deviated from the dream, because now I have to be aware that things are not going to happen as planned. I will be on guard."

Crow nodded. "But Nefrai-kesh would know that you'd read his message correctly, so he must be doing something else."

Alyx laughed, sat on a chest, and pulled her boots off. "I don't care what he does, just as long as a shadow falls across him when we finally meet. Maroth can finish him."

Crow's face closed. "No. Nefrai-kesh is mine."

"Beloved, you don't need to make any demonstration for me."

"It's not a show of bravado. I just owe it to the man he was before. I won't be stupid about it, but I just know it will happen. It has to happen this way. I didn't kill him when he asked me to, so now I will when it is what he least wants."

Alexia nodded solemnly. "I won't gainsay you that opportunity. When do you think he will face us?"

Crow frowned. "The next battle he will let Tythsai die. The one after that."

"That's the last battle of my dreams."

"That would be it, then." Crow rested his left hand on his sword's hilt. "Within the month, this could all be over."

Resolute ducked his head as he entered the Aurolani galley's cabin. He found he couldn't straighten up all the way, and the stench of the place quickly overrode the salt and wet-leather scent of his clothes.

There didn't seem to be enough room in the small cabin to hide a putrefying gibberer, but Resolute's nose was telling him one had been chopped up and concealed in all the nooks and crannies.

Kerrigan looked up from the foot of the berth. He had the small chest there filled with clean cloth, and had fashioned a small bed for Qwc. The Spritha had stretched out and lay beneath a scarf.

"How is he, Kerrigan?"

The youth shook his head. "I used some spells to see if he was hurt. I don't know Spritha physiology too well, but I think he is okay. He didn't say anything, though, not a word. What happened?"

Resolute held on to a crossbeam. "The Aurolani had captured me. Qwc rescued me."

"He led you to safety?"

"No, he actually rescued me." Resolute nodded toward the sleeping Spritha. "He put his spear to great use. Tagothcha should treasure it."

Kerrigan blinked. "Qwc killed someone?"

"Many someones. All of them."

The young mage glanced down at Qwc, then drew the scarf up a bit further and tucked it in. "Don't worry, Qwc. You'll be okay."

Resolute watched the tenderness with which Kerrigan acted, and felt a smile growing on his face. He'd done his best to care for Qwc on their journey in the others' wake, but they had been moving fast. Qwc might have wanted to talk about his experience, and that might have been helpful, but silence had been the rule. So the Spritha had taken to sleeping more and more, and Resolute had fashioned a sling bed for him and had carried him as a child might carry a doll.

Kerrigan stood, then frowned. "Why don't you sit down? That's a nasty wound on your head."

"It's nothing."

"Resolute, it's open and oozing. I'll handle it. Please?"

The Vorquelf nodded and took Kerrigan's seat. He jerked his head toward the figure in the bed.

"Who's this?"

Kerrigan shrugged as he probed the wound with his fingertips. "He's the person who took the fragments. Oracle said he's the last adult Vorquelf in the world. Trawyn said he was a dreamwing-eater.

She said he was likely to be dangerous until he had been free of dreamwing for a while, so I hit him with the spell Chytrine used on me. I modified it a bit, of course. He can come out of it when he's sane."

"That was a good precaution." Resolute winced as a crusted scab broke. "Predator on the wheeldeck... That wasn't the first time he tried to go back, was it?"

"No."

"You dealt with it?"

"I had to." Resolute couldn't read the expression on Kerrigan's face in the backlight of the spell the youth cast. Heat seared into the wound with a golden light flashing. It felt as if all the itching the wound had done and would ever do had been combined. It kept building and building. Resolute longed to scratch away at it, but instead he grabbed the edge of the stool between his legs and held on.

Then the light faded, and slowly the itch began to subside. The Vorquelf nodded, but still didn't release the stool. "Thank you. Want to tell me about Predator?"

"Not much to tell. You put me in charge. He didn't like it." Kerrigan shrugged again. "I just asked myself what you would have done, and I did it."

"Hardly. He's still alive."

"You didn't kill him either."

"He can still pull an oar."

"He could still carry a stretcher." Kerrigan gave Resolute a lopsided grin. "I pretty much asked myself what you would do whenever I had to make a decision-well, except I didn't do any killing. It worked-until we got here, that is. I'm glad you showed up because I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't."

"You'd have thought of something. You made good time coming north."

Kerrigan's grin grew. "I told them you'd have marched them further and faster, and that Icouldif they forced me to."

"Clever." The itching having vanished, Resolute stood. "If they keep pulling strongly, we should make Saslynnae inside a day and a half."

"We'll put into the main port? Isn't that dangerous?"

"What part of going to Vorquellyn isn't?" Resolute sighed. "We go directly in, make straight for the coruesci, and hope our sleeping friend can get us in. We get Will and go."

Kerrigan sighed heavily. "Does that sound as impossible to you as it does to me?"

Resolute started to give him a sharp answer, but hesitated. The youth had actually risen above himself and taken charge of the expedition at a point when it could have fallen apart. Resolute firmly believed Will was the key to destroying Chytrine and redeeming Vorquellyn. Kerrigan's efforts made certain they'd be able to rescue Will. For that, if nothing else, he deserved more than sarcasm.

"Yes, it does sound impossible, doesn't it?" Resolute smiled slowly. "But if Will's going to come back from the dead, our task is nothing by comparison."

"Good point, Resolute. I'm glad you're back."

"As am I. Take care of our two charges here, will you? Let me know if anything changes."

"I will."

Resolute returned to the wheeldeck and breathed deeply of the fresh air. Below, the Grey Misters pulled on the oars. Spray splashed against the prow where Oracle stood looking north. Resolute had no doubt that, despite her being blind, she'd see Vorquellyn well before the island appeared on the horizon.

Trawyn looked back at him. "You should know that anyone standing here can listen in on conversations in the main cabin."

"Thank you. Did you hear something interesting?"

She nodded slowly. "Predator was not alone in wanting to turn back. I was ready to go along with him to keep the fragments out of Chytrine's clutches. I think it's wrong for us to be taking them to Vorquellyn."

Resolute slowly smiled. "Kerrigan faced you down as well?"

Her good eye narrowed. "He did."

"Really? And when we visited Rellaence before, it was Will who made you Loquelves back away from your prejudice against the Gyrkyme."

"It was."

"That's rather remarkable."

"Yes? How so?"

"You, a princess of Loquellyn, and human children give you fits?"

She barked a sharp laugh. "Vorquelf children are giving me more fits."

"The Grey Misters are no problem for you, so you mean Oracle."

Trawyn looked north, toward the ship's bow. "Yes, I must admit, her quiet adamancy about the prophecy and how things should go is an annoyance. It was only logical and right for us to return to the south. You were gone, we had two fragments and a very dangerous person to deal with. But she said he was the key to thecoruesci. There was never any doubt on her part that we would get to Vorquellyn and find Will."

"That's just how she sees things."

"Oh, I understand that. I respect her gift." The Loquelf shifted her shoulders. "That gift is rare in children, but not unknown. Still, no one has ever been wholly right. What if she is wrong?"

Resolute shook his head. "There are more ways for her to be wrong than there are stars in the sky. I decided long ago to believe she is right and not to worry about it. All the signs point to it."