Demon King (55 page)

But I found myself staring to my right, away from the Maisirian lines, toward that tempting, rolling high ground we’d been hurrying for. A fine place to camp. Or mount an attack from, using the slope to add weight to the charge. And I’d seen no Maisirian cavalry other than outriders …

I called for my gallopers and snapped orders. Some goggled, and I shouted “Yes, yes,” and said “Now, ride out, damn your eyes” and they obeyed. Tribune Safdur, nominally in charge of the cavalry, gaped, but said nothing. I sent two of my staff officers back to the army, one to tell the emperor of my stupidity and disobedience, the other asking Linerges, commanding the corps just behind mine, to attack with us.

Slowly the great mass of the Numantian cavalry swung right, away from the Maisirian attack, toward the high ground, as stupid a thing as I’ve ever done, and so I signaled for the trot. Bugles rang, and the monstrous mailed fist reached out. I kicked Brigstock to the gallop, and we swept through the flankers until we were at the cavalry’s head, my Red Lancers close behind.

Men and horses one tempered weapon, we hurtled up the gentle slope, over its crest, into the Maisirian cavalry. They were drawn up, waiting to make their surprise attack as we smashed into their flank as a lance rips into a soldier’s unarmored side. They tried to turn, but were too slow, and we shattered them as a hammer smashes crystal.

A man swung a morningstar, and I let the weapon’s chain wrap around my lance, then yanked it from his grip. He flailed, not knowing what to do next, and Curd killed him. I threw the now-useless lance into another Maisirian’s face, and let Svalbard finish him. I had my sword in one hand, Yonge’s long dagger in the other, as I parried a sword stroke, swung at my attacker, missed, and he vanished into the fray.

A spear darted toward my face. I flinched away, and the spearman grew an arrow from his eye and went down. A riderless horse pawed at Brigstock, and he screamed and smashed the animal with an iron shoe, as I gutted a man running at me swinging a sword over his head. There were two men attacking me, getting in each other’s way, swearing at each other, and I put my blade in one’s stomach and let him roll back, screaming, into his fellow, then slashed that man’s thigh open and he lost interest in me.

The battle went on … and on … and we broke their lines, reformed, came back, and again butchered our way through their ranks. I looked for banners that might mark King Bairan or, better yet, the
azaz
, hoping to find an easy way to end this battle, this war, letting red anger touch me, but I saw nothing.

I saw fifty men on identical white stallions, all wearing black, with a yellow banner at their head. At their head was an armored man with an open helm. I recognized him, Rauri Rewald, commander of their cavalry, whom I’d met in Jarrah, and he knew me at the same instant, and we cried orders that were the same:

“Take that man!”

“Kill him!”

My Red Lancers and his bodyguard surged together, and all was demoniac madness. A man slashed at my leg, and I felt a bit of pain, saw a bit of blood as I slashed and his sword — and arm — went spinning into the air, and then I forgot about him.

Another Maisirian reeled from some unseen blow, and I smashed my blade into his helmet and sent him tumbling. I may have killed another man, perhaps two, maybe three, but I don’t remember precisely.

I do remember the sudden open space in this roiling slaughter, with no one in it but Rewald on his prancing white horse and myself. Rewald’s two-handed sword struck, and I knocked it away, and then chanced a thrust that clanged harmlessly against his breastplate. He swung with all his might, and my arm went numb as I took his power on my shield.

He opened his mouth to shout something, no doubt a great challenge to ring down the years, and I had no reply but a darting thrust that took him in the face and went up into his brain, through his skull, sent his helmet spinning away. His eyes gaped, then he fell away, off my blade, and I heard a great wailing.

But his men didn’t stop fighting. The swirl of their death went on, and on, and then there were blood-drenched horses pawing in death, and piled, black-armored bodies moaning as they tried to deny Saionji’s summons. But all too many of my Lancers were down as well. I gasped for air, not remembering having breathed for hours, days, and saw, across the bloody field, weapons being flung down, riders galloping away, men holding their hands up in surrender, and I realized we’d taken the field.

Then the emperor’s final spell was sent against the Maisirians in the swamps. No Numantian knew what to make of it for an instant, but the Maisirians appeared to have gone mad, suddenly swinging at nothing, clawing at their eyes, screaming in pain, having no mind for war — and then our soldiers cut into them.

The spell was simple, nothing more than deerflies. Of a sort. Deerflies that were invisible, whose bites burned like the Maisirian fire, whose searing agony shattered a fighter’s thoughts — and let his attacker end the contest. The magic lasted for brief seconds, but that was enough. The wavering Maisirian line broke, and soldiers in their thousands were surrendering or fleeing.

We’d finally met the Maisirian army, and shattered it. But there was no formal surrender. Nothing came from king Bairan, nothing from the
jedaz
, the leaders of his army. The remains of the Maisirian army fled north once more.

But the emperor was content. “We have them,” he said. “Their king can’t allow this war to continue. Not after this.” Then he said something strange. “And the price has been met. Now the power is on my side. Now the way is open to Jarrah.”

But the cost was terrible. Almost thirty thousand of our finest — infantry, cavalry, skirmishers — were dead, dying, or desperately injured on this nameless field. Our sorcerers and chirurgeons did what they could to help the wounded, but all too often there was nothing but a moment’s prayer and finding a bit of cloth to lay across newly empty eyes. Among the dead were Mercia Petre and his aide, Phillack Herton, who I truly hope had been more than just a companion and servant, had given my friend love.

That night, we built pyres and sacrificed.

I watched the fires rage and remembered Mercia, that unemotional, dry, sometimes slovenly man, whose only life was the army.

There was a man beside me, and I saw that it was Le Balafre. His leg was bandaged, and he had his arm in a sling. He stared long at Petre’s flaming memorial, then said, so quietly I barely heard his words:

“It was a good death. Our kind of death.” Then he walked away, into darkness.

The way was open to Jarrah.

Once again I looked down at Jarrah’s sprawl, and this time my skin crept. It’s one thing to see a small town like Irthing abandoned; it’s quite another to see a metropolis like Jarrah in a misting rain with never a horse or man about, not a chimney puffing smoke or any sound but the wind whistling down empty avenues.

We’d made the march to Jarrah in barely six days, and our scouts and skirmishers had entered the city’s outskirts on the morning of the seventh. They found nothing, and had the good sense to take defensive positions and send word to the emperor. He’d gone forward with an entire corps for his bodyguard, and taken the Chare Brethren with him. They laid spell after spell to see if Jarrah had been turned into one great sorcerous trap, but they discovered nothing.

I tried to imagine a people so obedient they’d march into the wilderness at their king’s orders, and thought of how many helpless people were doomed to return to the Wheel in those harsh forests to the south. What was Bairan’s plan? What did he intend? Had he gone insane?

The emperor ordered the army to set up camp outside the city. He wanted Jarrah intact, not as a looted ruin. The disappointed grumbles from the army were muted, since no one knew what snares had been laid.

Two regiments of cavalry were to reconnoiter the city, and I’d “suggested” to Safdur that it be the Seventeenth and the Twentieth, my favorites among the elite formations, and said I’d lead them.

The sound of our horses’ hooves was very loud on the cobbles as we entered the city. This time, I did it by the book, posting squads at each crossroads, never committing my forces until an area was cleared. My goal was Moriton and Bairan’s palace. Halfway through the city I ran short of men and sent for two infantry regiments to replace my vedettes, then continued my leapfrogging advance.

We found a few Maisirians, mostly ancients or those who were beyond anyone’s law. They scuttled for hiding places, and we made no move to stop them.

The gates of Moriton were barred. We cast grapnels over them, and half a dozen volunteers went up the ropes. Minutes later, the gates swung open. We rode past the Octagon, and the gates yawned. With three men I went inside. The cells were empty. I saw a body, impaled on one of the tall glass spikes of the inner wall. It was the skull-smiling Chief Warder, Shikao. That was a puzzle — certainly King Bairan’s soldiers wouldn’t have permitted that. So what
did
happen to the prisoners? Where were they?

We went up the many-colored drive to King Bairan’s palace. I went in, saw my breath fogging in the empty, unheated corridors and audience chambers, and heard my boots clatter in the emptiness.

I made one further incursion, to the end of Moriton, where the walls brooded against the Belaya Forest, to the dark castle of the
azaz.
We saw no one, and its gates were sealed. We didn’t enter. The
azaz
would certainly have left wards against visitors.

We made our report to the emperor.

Tenedos exploded. “How dare this barbaric bastard call himself a king? And these damned people who’re his subjects — fucking idiot peasants! What are they doing? Are they too gods-damned dumb to realize they’ve lost? Where the hells is Bairan’s peace delegation? Where the hells are the white flags?”

I was far too wise to voice my thoughts: Suppose King Bairan and the Maisirians don’t think they’re beat at all? Suppose Jarrah doesn’t matter to them, any more than the rest of Maisir they’ve given up? There’re still thousands of leagues to the south, north, and west where no one has ever heard of Numantians. For them, has the war barely begun? Are they still confident, thinking it can still be won?

That brought a chill, for anyone who could believe that, with their capital and hundreds of leagues of their country in enemy hands, and never a battle won, was as alien as any wizard-summoned demon.

“Not that it matters,” Tenedos said, forcing a lighter tone. “I — We have his capital, which means we hold Maisir. We’ll invest the city tomorrow, at first light.”

I wondered what sort of triumph that would be, but smiled, agreed, saluted, and asked to be dismissed. I should’ve busied myself preparing for the morrow, which units should march where and so forth. But I had a staff, and so I let my heart decide, something I perhaps should have done more often. I told Svalbard to find Captain Balkh and have the Lancers ready to ride in ten minutes.

I set forth on my fool’s errand, knowing how hopeless was my dream. We rode quickly through Jarrah to the southern outskirts, then continued on into the country. It was late, getting on toward nightfall, and the misting rain grew heavier.

There was a tiny village ahead, and Svalbard pulled his horse beside mine. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir. But would y’ do me the favor of lookin’ in my eyes?” I was astounded, especially that this came from a closemouthed old soldier like Svalbard, but I obeyed.

“Right,” he muttered. “I guess you’re not bewitched. Though how I’d know for sure’s beyond me …” He let his horse trail back into formation. My worries vanished, my dark mood ended, and I roared laughter. This no doubt made my Red Lancers even more unsettled.

The village was not only abandoned, but had been looted and burned to the ground as well. We rode through into deep country, then rounded a bend, and the bluff with the gloom-ridden castle of the Dalriada reared above us.

I saw movement at the castle’s base, and we went up the curving road at the trot, weapons ready. There were sixteen men a bowshot beyond the gate, men dressed in everything from tattered Numantian uniform to woodsmen’s motley to a couple in Maisirian tunics. My archers had bows drawn and arrows nocked, when one man ran toward me, waving his arms wildly. “Wait,” he shouted. “Don’t shoot. We’re your’n's. We’re Yonge’s men.”

Their leader managed what I’m sure he thought was a very military salute. “Scout-Major Lanbay,” he said. “With Third Hun’erd, Yonge’s skirmishers.”

“What the hells are you doing this far from the army?”

Lanbay shifted and looked extraordinarily uncomfortable. “Uh … we was, well, sort of trying to see what’d happened to … to things.”

One of my men snickered.

“You mean you were looting?”

“Nossir.” Lanbay searched his inventory of expressions, couldn’t find one for injured innocence, and settled for rounding his eyes, which made him look like a village imbecile. “Wouldn’t dream of doing something like that. Sir. Hangin’ offense, isn’t it?”

There was more than one laugh.

“Set that aside, Scout-Major, but be advised you’re a truly shitty liar,” I said. “Now, what were you doing out here at Dalriada? Try the truth. It might not poison you.”

Lanbay took a deep breath, examined my expression, remembered I’d hanged more than a few Numantian soldiers for crimes of war, and decided to do what I’d suggested. “We was afraid of bein’ in the city, sir. Didn’t know what magics c’d be waitin'. Thought we’d find some-thin’ beyond Jarrah, then mebbe work back toward our lines.”

His men came up beside him, relieved that I evidently wasn’t going to hang them in the next minute or so. “Thought we might find somethin’ in that village back yon,” one of his men volunteered. “But it’d already been combed through an’ torched. We spied this castle. Castle’s allus got things worth takin'. But it’s defended.”

“Irisu on a rope,” I near-shouted, and I looked for cover as I saw a line of helmeted, grim-visaged men at the battlements. I was aghast at my, and my men’s, unbelievable carelessness. My Lancers scrabbled for cover, archers fumbling arrows to bowstrings.