Shadowbred_ The Twilight War Part 25

"They number about thirty," Phlen added. "All mounted, plus three carriages. I would wager on a wizard or priest in their midst."

"Phlen's wagers are poor bets though, sir," Othel said with a grin.

"p.i.s.s off," Phlen said. Lorgan and the commanders chuckled.

"Wizards and priests are both likely," Lorgan said. His own force numbered seventy-six men, including Vors and Paalin-two war priests of Talos-and the Blades' most powerful wizard, Mennick.

"We could let them camp," Reht said. "And come upon them at night."

The Blades often used such a plan. The men were experienced night fighters. With Mennick's spells and several enchanted items possessed by the company's leaders, most of the men could be empowered to see in moonless darkness, and the tactic had worked in many battles.

"No," he said. "If we a.s.sault them while camped at night, we will have a slaughter. We want to wound them and send them running northward for their lives. We will attack them on the road." To Phlen and Othel he said, "Fall in with your squads."

Lorgan turned to Vors and Paalin, his war priests. Both wore their brown hair long and tangled; both had deep-set, wild eyes. Lorgan attributed their crazed expressions to their worship of the G.o.d of destruction. Each bore a shield that featured the jagged lightning bolt of their deity.

"Hide your holy symbols and leave your shields behind," Lorgan ordered them.

Vors snarled behind his beard. Paalin scowled and said, "I would sooner stick my hand up a dragon's a.r.s.e."

"Leave them," Lorgan ordered, "or I will stick my hand up yours and pull out your heart. We are to appear as if in service to Saerb and Selgaunt, priest. Are many of your brothers in the faith in service to those cities?"

The priests looked away, grumbling.

"Leave the shields or I will leave you behind altogether."

Lorgan knew the threat of missing the battle would cause the berserker priests to see sense.

"Very well," Vors barked, and tossed his shield to the ground. Paalin did the same. Both of them glared at Lorgan.

Lorgan smiled and looked to his sergeants. "Attack from the rear. Make sure they see you coming for a fair distance. Force them northward to Ordulin. It does not matter how many of them die, so long as some do. Minimize our own losses. Remember, we are not trying to wipe them out, just blood them. The carriages are not to be harmed or attacked and none of our men are left behind, dead or alive. Understood?"

All nodded.

"Let's move out, then," Lorgan said.

The sergeants pulled their horses around and issued readiness orders to the men.

With the rapidity and precision that had won the Blades more than twenty battles, the force moved out. They formed five squads, each led by one of Lorgan's sergeants.

Vors and Paalin pulled colored gla.s.s spheres from their saddlebags and shattered them on an elm's trunk, asking for Talos to find pleasure in the destruction and bless the men in the coming battle. Lorgan thumped both of the priests on the shoulder, mending any hard feelings.

"Reht and the archers to the rear," Lorgan ordered.

Reht and his ten bowmen fell into formation at the rear. Lorgan, the priests, and Mennick fell in behind them.

When the group reached Rauthauvyr's Road-a wide, packed earth road that stretched across Sembia's eastern coastal region like a ribbon-they moved five abreast and accelerated into a gallop. The thunder of hooves shook the earth in all directions.

After a half-hour of hard riding, they spotted the Saerloonian delegation ahead. Enken used hand signals to order the men into a crescent formation. Enken and Gavist's men took the left; Borl and Scorral's took the right. Reht and his archers took their bows in hand and formed a loose line within the crescent. Lorgan, the priests, and Mennick trailed them.

"I want to shed some blood in this, Lorgan," Vors said, thumping a gauntleted fist on his breastplate. Paalin growled agreement.

Lorgan shook his head. "You both are to stay near me. You will see to any wounded and make sure no one is left behind, alive or dead." Lorgan knew that a prisoner or corpse could be questioned and reveal the ident.i.ty of the attackers. Forrin had been clear about not allowing that to happen.

The priests barked their usual complaints but agreed to do as Lorgan ordered.

Ahead, the trailing riders of the Saerloonian delegation turned and saw Lorgan's forces bearing down on them. Two sped forward and shouted to the rest of the train. A score of heads turned around, alarmed. Men pointed, shouted. Shields were readied, weapons drawn. Heads poked out of the carriages and looked back. Lorgan grinned, imagining the Saerloonian n.o.bles' shock over an attack on their own road.

Gavist sounded a horn blast. The clear notes rang out over the thunder of hooves.

One of the Saerloonian riders sounded a trumpet in answer. Lorgan could see one or two of the riders issuing orders on the fly. The Saerloonian delegation spurred their horses into a hard gallop but the whole train could move only as quickly as the horses could pull the bouncing carriages. The Blades rapidly closed the gap. One rider in the Saerloonian delegation turned in his saddle and pointed something back at the Blades. Lorgan guessed he had spotted a wizard.

"Wand!" shouted several of the Blades.

A jagged bolt of lightning shot from the wand and tore through Borl's men. Three horses and their riders fell, screaming, smoking.

"See to those fallen men!" shouted Lorgan to Paalin, who sped off to a.s.sist the wounded. Mennick started to cast a spell to counter the wizard, but Lorgan waved him off.

"Wait," he said to the wizard, and shouted to Reht and his archers. "Archers on the wizard! Archers on the wizard!"

Shooting at a moving target by mounted archers was difficult, but Lorgan knew Reht's men to be very good. Reht's squad pulled their bows and drew the strings to their ears.

"Fire!" Reht said, and eleven arrows buzzed into the sky. Most fell harmlessly to the road but two hit the wizard's mount and it fell onto the road. The Saerloonians did not stop for their downed man.

"Run him down," Lorgan shouted.

Two of Enken's men steered their mounts over the fallen Saerloonian wizard, smashing his skull before he could rise. The Blades drew closer to the Saerloonians. The Saerloonians tried to form up as best they could on the run.

Heads appeared out of the carriages once more. Lorgan could make out their wide-eyed expressions. One shouted something to a nearby rider and ducked back inside. The left door of the rearmost carriage opened and a man stood on the foot rail, facing backward. His blue robes swirled around a breastplate enameled with a symbol of a spoked wheel-a Gondsman. His hand gestures told Lorgan he was casting a spell.

"Beware the priest!" shouted Enken, and the call was repeated across the formation.

"Hit him," Lorgan said to Mennick.

The wizard hurried through an incantation and completed his spell before the priest could. Four glowing missiles of energy streaked from his fingertips and blasted the priest in the chest. The Gondsman grimaced with pain but held his footing and completed his spell. He pointed his open hand at the road behind the carriage and Lorgan saw the telltale ripple of a magical distortion move across the earth.

The road behind the carriage turned to mud in an instant. Most of Gavist and Borl's men could not stop and rode right into it. Their mounts. .h.i.t the mud and sank to their gaskins in the sludge. The abrupt stop threw the riders head over heels. Panicked and wounded horses neighed and screamed. Some of the men cursed; others shouted in pain.

Lorgan, Vors, Mennick, and the archers yanked their steeds to a halt and steered around the mire, but the spell separated them from the rest of the force.

Meanwhile, Enken and Scorral's squads, unaffected by the mud trap, rode hard after the Saerloonians. The gap between the two groups of Lorgan's forces yawned.

The Saerloonians suddenly went on the offensive. Twenty of the Saerloonian riders wheeled as one to the left, turned, and galloped toward Enken's men. Scorral shouted and his squad moved to intercept them on the diagonal. Meanwhile, the remaining dozen Saerloonians and the carriage sped northward down the road.

The Saerloonian riders wore breastplates and open-faced helms, and carried round cavalry shields. They raised blades high as they closed on Enken's men. Enken's men responded with readied blades of their own.

"For Saerb and Endren!" shouted Enken, and some of his men echoed the lie. Lorgan smiled, pleased that his sergeant had remembered to put forth the ruse.

Flesh and steel collided with thunderous impact. Horses went down; men screamed. Blades fell and came up b.l.o.o.d.y. A handful of dead were left on each side as they parted.

The Saerloonians wheeled to their right, circled, and headed back up the road. Scorral's squad crashed into their flank. Horses neighed and bucked. Shields collided. Men shouted and died. For a moment, Lorgan could not tell who was who.

"For Selgaunt and Sembian freedom!" Scorral and some of his men shouted.

The Saerloonians put up only a token fight and tried to speed away. Scorral's men let them go and Scorral held up his hand to halt his squad from pursuing. Enken did the same.

"Probably enough," Lorgan muttered to himself. They had drawn some blood and set the Saerloonians to flight. There was no need to risk his men further.

A horn sounded from up the road and a hundred or more riders thundered into view, moving down the road at a full gallop. The sun glinted off their blades and plumed helms. They bore a standard but Lorgan could not make it out.

The fleeing Saerloonians cheered. The cavalry fleeing from Scorral's forces wheeled around as though for a counterattack.

"Who in the h.e.l.ls are they?" Vors asked.

Reht shouted, "They fly Ordulin's wheel, sir!"

Lorgan cursed. He had too small and too scattered a force to withstand a charge of a hundred cavalry. Besides, his charge had been only to hit the Saerloonians. What in the Nine h.e.l.ls were Ordulin's forces doing in the field?

"Give the Ordulins some fire, Reht!" he shouted, then hit Mennick on the thigh with the flat of his blade. "And you-earn your keep, G.o.dsdammit! You cannot even counter a Gondsman." To the rest of his forces, he shouted, "Get the men, even the fallen, and fall back. Now. Move! Move!"

Ordulin's forces blew another horn blast and formed a charging line.

The Saerloonian cavalry completed their turn and formed up for another pa.s.s.

Lorgan's men retreated and scrambled to gather their fallen and those still mired in the mud.

The Ordulin cavalry shouted as it charged. The Saerloonian cavalry did the same. The carriages pulled to a stop and Saerloonian n.o.bility emerged to watch the battle.

Reht's archers fired a volley at the Ordulins and wheeled around to retreat. A few arrows struck home and a few of the charging cavalry went down. Mennick incanted the words to a spell and a curtain of sizzling flame appeared in front of the onrushing Ordulin cavalry. Most of the Ordulins pulled their mounts to a stop in time, but a few did not and three horses and men plunged through the flaming wall. All came out afire and flailing. The horses screamed and fell to the ground, rolling over the burning men.

Mennick intoned another spell and pointed at the onrushing Saerloonian cavalry. A thicket of barrel-wide black tentacles sprouted from the earth in their midst. The magical appendages plucked men and horses indiscriminately and squeezed. The Saerloonian counterattack died in its tracks as horses panicked and men tried to free their fallen comrades from the tentacles' deadly embrace.

Lorgan thumped Mennick on the shoulder. "Well done, wizard! An ale on my coin."

Lorgan shouted encouragement at his men. "Get them up! At it! At it, men!"

In moments, all his fallen men were loaded onto horses. Behind them, the Ordulin forces wheeled wide around the wall of fire.

"Ride!" he commanded. "Ride!"

The Blades kicked their heels into their steeds and tore south down Rauthauvyr's Road. Lorgan scanned his forces and estimated the damage. He had lost fewer than ten men, but left in his wake no fewer than a dozen Saerloonians and a handful of the soldiers out of Ordulin. He would get a firm count from his sergeants once they got clear.

He turned in his saddle and looked behind him. The Saerloonians still struggled with the tentacles and the Ordulin soldiery did not appear keen on pursuing.

He let himself relax. He disliked losing men but they had accomplished what they had hoped and gotten clear. The Saerloonians believed they had been attacked and bloodied by forces out of Saerb and Selgaunt. He would circle back, disperse his force into small teams, and rendezvous with Malkur outside of Ordulin.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

4 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms.

n.o.bles from nearby Yhaunn, Tulbeg, Surd, and Ornstar had been streaming into Ordulin for days to attend the moot. The city was thronged. A steady stream of caravans rattled down Tildaryn's Road from Yhaunn's docks, bringing grains from the distant markets of Raven's Bluff and Procampur. Perishable foodstuffs were teleported from distant locales directly to city warehouses. The city's mills turned night and day. The markets were well stocked and prices were only slightly above average. The people cheered their new overmistress for her decisiveness. The influx of n.o.bles and food put the citizens of the capital in an almost festive mood.

Meanwhile, Mirabeta had dispatched Elyril to supervise the arrest of any remaining n.o.bles in the city known to be loyal to Endren. Most had heard of the warrant ahead of time and fled before the Helms could take them into custody, but that bothered neither Mirabeta nor Elyril. Without Endren, the n.o.bles resistant to Mirabeta's ascension were headless. They would hole up in their manses or upcountry estates and accept whatever outcome the moot decided.

The city was firmly in Mirabeta's hands, in Elyril's hands, and indirectly, in Shar's hands. The people supported their new overmistress. The ugliness that had occurred in the High Council and on the streets faded from memory.

Ringed by a dozen armed and armored Helms, Mirabeta and Elyril stood outside their carriage on the cobblestone road near Ordulin's southern gate to await the arrival of the Saerloonians. A crowd had gathered around them, eager to see the Overmistress of Sembia, eager to see the pomp that went along with the Saerloonian delegation's arrival. Mirabeta waved to her citizens and they cheered.

Knowing precisely when the Blades would attack, Mirabeta had dispatched a force of Helms a few days earlier to meet the Saerloonian delegation on the road. Ostensibly the Helms were an honor escort, but Mirabeta's true purpose was to win the Saerloonians' goodwill by providing aid either during or soon after the Blades' attack.

"Sending out the Helms was a masterstroke, aunt," Elyril said, rubbing her temples. She had not been able to snuff any minddust before leaving the estate and her head ached from the lack.

Mirabeta held her smile as she waved to the crowd. "Mind your tongue and feign surprise, niece."

The Saerloonian delegation and the Ordulin Helms appeared in the distance. A rider ahead of the main body sped forward. A cloud of dust from the dry road heralded his progress. The crowd murmured in antic.i.p.ation. As the rider drew nearer, Elyril recognized his green uniform as that of one of Ordulin's Helms.

"One of Raithspur's men," she said.

Many in the crowd made the same observation. The murmur of the crowd grew louder when the blood on the rider's tabard became visible. Mirabeta and Elyril, accompanied by four Helms, stepped forward to meet the man.

The rider pulled his horse to a stop before the overmistress and dismounted. Road dust covered him. He'd seen perhaps twenty winters and had only a thin beard. He bowed to Mirabeta.

"What has occurred?" Mirabeta asked, loudly enough to be overheard.

"The Saerloonian delegation was attacked, Overmistress," the young Helm said. "We arrived in time to aid them. Several of our men were killed as well as several among the Saerloonians."

Mirabeta put her hand to her mouth in shock. Elyril gasped in feigned surprise, though the matter could not have unfolded better. The crowd grumbled with anger.

"Who attacked?" shouted several voices in the crowd. "Who?"

Mirabeta waved them to silence and asked the young man, "Who were the attackers, soldier?"

The soldier hesitated, then said, "They appeared to be men in service to Endren and the Hulorn of Selgaunt."

The crowd gasped. Mirabeta appeared shocked. Elyril had to control a sudden desire to giggle. Several members of the crowd shouted expletives, cursing Selgaunt and Saerb and Endren. Others looked less sure.

"How many among you are wounded?" Mirabeta asked.

"Nearly a dozen, Overmistress."

Mirabeta turned to the Helm nearest her and ordered him, "Summon Jemb to the gates. I want priests here on the doublequick."