Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy) (53 page)

Some of those who followed Iardalaith were surprising: she hadn’t expected Rondithiel Lightbrother to join the Warhunt, but moonturns ago he had left the Sanctuary of the Star and sought her out. She did not know—had never sought to discover—his reasons, but whatever they had been, he had chosen to aid her in her fight.

But if Rondithiel’s membership in the Warhunt was a thing unexpected, still more was that of the three from Caerthalien: Bramandrin Lightsister, Pantaradet Lightsister, and Jorganroch Lightbrother, for Caerthalien had the most cause of any of the Twelve to hold itself insulted by her actions. But Iardalaith’s Lightborn had quickly abandoned identification with this House or that, becoming merely Pelashia’s Children again, as they had all been in the Sanctuary. In the cool twilight, when camp had been set for the day, she watched them drilling upon the field, their spells flickering like summer lightning.

And in the back of her mind was this thought: if the Lightborn could learn new ways and set aside old loyalties, the rest of her people could as well.

*   *   *

Isilla returned to Vieliessar when the army was halfway across Ivrithir to say War Prince Aranviorch rejected her terms, but offered others: a thousand horses, and a hundred of them to be chosen by her or by her envoy, to defer the battle for two years.

“The horse fair is next year,” Rithdeliel said. “He couldn’t fight then, anyway.”

Vieliessar sat at the table in her pavilion, her senior commanders around her. They had eaten while discussing Aranviorch’s offer, and now the maps were out.

“He thinks we’ll be somebody else’s problem by then,” Thoromarth said.

“Normally he’d be right,” Rithdeliel said.

“Still, a thousand Mangiralas horses,” Thoromarth said.

“When we’ve won, we’ll take all, not some,” Vieliessar said. “Tomorrow I send Isilla to reject his offer and call upon him to fight or to surrender. But I wish to know what is in his mind.”

“You need Lightborn for that, not warriors,” Nadalforo said. “I can guess at his strategy, though. Mangiralas is a Less House, but a wealthy one. They go to war rarely—they have what they want, and what everyone else wants, too.”

“Horses,” Princess Nothrediel said.

Nadalforo inclined her head. “And they have the Summer Truce, to which War Princes come and where tongues wag freely. Aranviorch probably knows more about what’s going on among the Hundred Houses—your pardon, my lord, the Ninety-and-Nine—than anyone else.”

“No,” Vieliessar said slowly. “The Astromancer knows at least as much. The commonfolk from every domain come to the Sanctuary. I grant you, children know little of the treaties and alliances their War Princes may enact, but they know if it has been a good year or a bad.”

“On their
farms
,” Rithdeliel said, with heavy emphasis.

“The farms tithe,” Vieliessar said. “And the nobles come to the Sanctuary for Healing, and they, too, speak unguardedly.”

“We aren’t fighting the Sanctuary,” Gunedwaen said.

“Not today,” Vieliessar agreed. “So. Aranviorch knows much. And of his knowledge, he wishes to delay battle, thinking I shall not be here in two years’ time. I refuse. What next?”

“If he meant to surrender on your terms, he would just have accepted them and been done,” Rithdeliel said. “You’re already nearly on his border. He doesn’t have time to send for help. And Mangiralas isn’t client of any of the High Houses anyway.”

“And no one attacks them,” Nadalforo said, “because of the horses. No one wants to risk offending its War Prince and being shut out of the Horse Fair.”

“Since we’re going to attack, where will they meet us?” Vieliessar asked.

“Here,” Nadalforo said, pointing to an area on the map. “The Plains of Naralkhimar, where the Fair is held. Flat, good for fighting, and a sennight from the keep. He’ll want to keep the fighting as far from there as possible.”

“Defeat him there and push him back toward his keep. The closer he gets to it, the more likely he is to surrender,” Rithdeliel said.

“A good plan,” Vieliessar said.

*   *   *

“It isn’t what you plan to do, is it?” Nadalforo said. She’d lingered after the others had left. “Sit on the Plains and let him hammer you while he waits for reinforcements?”

“As a matter of fact, it isn’t,” Vieliessar said. “While he’s fighting my army on the Plains, I’m going to take his keep and his horses. And then we’ll see if he’s willing to be reasonable.”

“If you can perform such a miracle, he’d be a fool not to be,” Nadalforo said.

“I shall require your help,” Vieliessar said, and Nadalforo smiled.

*   *   *

Three sennights later, Heir-Princess Maerengiel and Ladyholder Faurilduin, who was also Aranviorch’s Chief Warlord, met Vieliessar’s army on the Plains of Naralkhimar.
Mangiralas must be very confident of the victory,
Vieliessar thought, seeing the Heir-Princess’s banner, for only two children had been born of Aranviorch’s and Faurilduin’s long marriage: twins, a boy and a girl. The girl, younger by a score of heartbeats, was heir.

Virry and her archers stood unseen between the destriers awaiting the charge of the enemy knights. When the horns rang out and the drums thundered, the knights of Oronviel did not move.

The enemy charged anyway. Their center was mounted on black horses, all as alike as grains of wheat, and their coats were dark as shadows in the dawn light.

Let them stand, let them stand,
Vieliessar thought, her thoughts almost a prayer, for stillness in the face of an enemy’s charge went against every instinct of the
komen
.
And let my infantry survive as well,
she added, for there was no place for them to stand save in the ranks of mounted knights, and no direction for them to retreat but between the galloping destriers when her own line moved.

Closer came the enemy, and closer, and the ground shook with the pounding of hooves. Then, just as Vieliessar began to fear that Virry had left it too late, she heard a shrill whistle and the archers stepped forward, moving as one. Moving with quiet precision, they nocked arrows, loosed them, drew more arrows from their quivers, nocked, aimed, and loosed again.

The first rank of Mangiralas’s charge dissolved into chaos. Horses fell, dead or wounded, flinging knights from the saddle with as much force as if the animals had hit an invisible wall. The banner of the Heir-Princess fell to the ground.

The riders in the ranks immediately behind the lead knights collided with the downed animals. More horses fell, more knights were unhorsed. Some riders tried to jump the tangle of bodies and a few made it. Most did not. Virry and her archers turned their attention to the knights. Anyone afoot became an immediate target. Through an eye-slit, above the armored collet, through the narrow flexible plates of armor which protected the midsection, under the arm—anywhere the armor was weak, an arrow from the walking bow could pierce it to wound or kill.

The forward momentum of Mangiralas had been halted. Now Vieliessar gave the signal and Bethaerian blew her horn. The call was taken up by other knights-herald throughout Vieliessar’s army, and Virry’s infantry used those few precious seconds to begin their escape.

Then the army charged.

The Oronviel cavalry split immediately, galloping around the tangled mass of dead and wounded. If everything went perfectly, Oronviel would attack from behind before Mangiralas recovered from the shock of its disrupted charge.

But even as Vieliessar’s knights galloped forward, the Mangiralas forces were retreating and reforming with fluid grace.

It was the beginning of a long day of fighting. Vieliessar’s forces suffered brutal casualties, for the Mangiralas
komen
were brilliant riders, and fought with the fury of those who had suddenly discovered war was a costly and terrible event. Destrier and knight moved as one creature, and each taille seemed to know the thoughts of all its members without need for warhorn or signal call. Vieliessar had advantage in numbers, which was all that kept her casualties from being heavier than they were, for exhausted companies of her knights could leave the field for a candlemark or two of rest. But when Mangiralas sounded the retreat a candlemark before sunset, she was glad enough to signal the nearest knight-herald to echo it.

That was not Bethaerian. She had not seen the captain of her guard for a long time. Her banner was now carried by Janondiel.

She took reports from her captains as Avedana helped her out of her armor. How many dead, how many wounded, how many horses killed, how many knights could fight again tomorrow. She’d barely pulled off the last piece of her armor when one of the sentries came to tell her Mangiralas had sent a messenger. She dropped into a chair, barefoot, filthy, still in her aketon and mail shirt.

“By the Light, I hope they come to offer Mangiralas’s surrender,” she groaned to Aradreleg. “Let the messenger of Mangiralas enter,” she said.

The messenger who entered wore, as she expected, the green robe of a Lightborn.

“I am Camaibien Lightbrother,” he said. “I come from Faurilduin Warlord, who is wife to the War Prince of Mangiralas.”

“Greetings to you, Lightbrother,” Vieliessar said. “I am sorry you see us in such disarray, but the battle is but recently over, as you know. Tea? Cider? No? Then I would hear your words at once.”

“Ladyholder Faurilduin demands you withdraw from Mangiralas at once, that you deliver to her to do with as she chooses those who unlawfully slew our knights with arrows as if they were beasts of the forest, that you pay to Mangiralas such teind as War Prince Aranviorch shall choose to assess, and that you acknowledge you have offered battle in bad faith, outside the Code of Battle.”

“No,” Vieliessar said.

There was a moment of silence. Camaibien Lightbrother looked very much as if he wanted to ask her if she actually meant that, but restrained himself. “Have you any further message for Lady Faurilduin?” he asked at last, his voice crisp with anger.

“Say to her that Mangiralas is still welcome to surrender, on the terms I have previously offered. And tell her if she has slain any prisoners she holds, I shall kill her whether she surrenders or not,” Vieliessar said.

“I … shall give her your words, Lord Vieliessar,” Camaibien said tonelessly.

She waved her hand, giving him leave to go.

Komen
Bethaerian was not found among the living, or the wounded, or among the dead on the field, nor did Mangiralas send a further message to say it surrendered.

*   *   *

On the second day of fighting, Vieliessar stationed Virry’s archers at the
deosil
edge of the field, among several companies of knights positioned as if they were a relief force. This time the infantry had palfreys waiting behind the companies of knights, for the archers were far from the camp. When the call to charge was given, the knights of Mangiralas moved forward at a sedate—even cautious—walk.

When the archers began firing on their flank, Vieliessar and her knights charged Mangiralas at a full gallop. They struck for the
tuathal
side of the ranks of horsemen, out of range of the archers. Mangiralas’s center tried to take advantage of that, thinking they could strike Oronviel’s midsection while it was unprepared for battle, but the rear ranks of the Oronviel cavalry weren’t just blindly charging after the knights ahead of them. At the signal, they wheeled and struck the center of Mangiralas’s line head-on. And as soon as the archers were away and safe, the “reserve” companies took the field, butchering their way through Mangiralas’s
deosil
flank.

That evening, Mangiralas fought all the way to dusk. They did not send an envoy.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Aradreleg said that night, when Avedana had finished removing Vieliessar’s armor. “We can’t!”

“How many wounded?” Vieliessar asked, wincing as she felt her ribs. They’d been bruised yesterday and she’d been hit in the same place today. She was only lucky her armor had held.

“Too many,” Aradreleg said grimly. “Here, let me—”

“I’m fine,” Vieliessar said.

“If you’ve learned to Heal yourself, I’m Queen of the Starry Hunt,” Aradreleg snapped.

“You’re exhausted,” Vieliessar protested, but let Aradreleg have her way. She had to fight again tomorrow. “How many of our wounded have died?”

“None—so far,” Aradreleg said. “But everyone injured, stays injured. We don’t have enough Lightborn for anything else.”

“It will be over soon, one way or the other,” Vieliessar said wearily.

“You’re right about that,” Aradreleg said. “Because in another day or two, you’ll be outnumbered.”

*   *   *

On the third day, when the call to charge was given, the two lines of knights faced each other and nobody moved. Then someone in the Oronviel lines laughed and Mangiralas charged. Their line was ragged, and their knights startled at shadows, jerking at their destrier’s reins so the animals danced sideways, but this time no archers attacked them.

Today Mangiralas devoted all its energy to the banner of Oronviel and the War Prince in silver armor who fought beneath it. Three times in the first candlemarks of fighting Vieliessar was unhorsed as her destrier was slain beneath her—she lost Sorodiarn, Grillet, and another whose name she never learned. Each time a horse fell beneath her, one of her guard gave up a mount so she might ride. Each time, Vieliessar could see Ladyholder Faurilduin only a few yards distant, fighting desperately to reach her and end her life before she could gain the saddle again.

Near midday, when the fighting was at its heaviest, Vieliessar heard a flurry of signal calls. Mangiralas, calling for a new attack.
They’ve figured it out,
she thought, already too exhausted for anything but determination. Any prisoners they’d taken—and she must hope Mangiralas held prisoners, for both Princess Nothrediel and Prince Monbrauel were missing—could have given up the bit of information that would have let Faurilduin learn that Oronviel’s camp held many wounded, and few Lightborn to tend them.

But Vieliessar had known her secret would eventually be guessed, and so today she had held back two hundred horse and all her infantry and kept them close beside her camp.