Die for the Flame (8 page)

CHAPTER TEN

T
he night was humid under the large tent, made more so by the press of officers crowding in to hear the orders. Campfires burned outside, throwing up shadows on the walls. The speaker was a tall, heavy man, with long, black hair streaked with silver down past his shoulders, braided at the temples, and a full, gray beard against ghost-white skin. His eyes were close set, yellow and gleaming with passion as he surveyed his officers. His thin lips were drawn back against his small teeth. A sword was belted about his waist over his black soldier’s tunic.

“Tomorrow night we march on Karran!” he roared.

The assembled officers shouted back and cheered, pounding one another on the back. Officers at the tent openings whispered the news to waiting junior officers who rushed away to tell comrades and subordinates. Outside, as the word was passed among the soldiers, the enthusiasm spread, and yells and laughter rang out across the clearing.

Ferman, war leader of the Maggan, held his hands up to regain quiet and then projected his voice out over the heads of the assembled officers. “We have waited for years for this day, the day we take back the Flame from the thieving Karran!”

The officers beat their chests with their fists and shouted, “Die, Karran, die!”

“They forced us to sign an ignoble peace treaty when the Great War ended, a peace with terms that cast dishonor on the Maggan people. We should never have signed such a disgraceful paper. The deceitful Karran tricked us. Now we will right that wrong. And we will regain the Flame. The Flame shall forever burn in our temple in Minteegan! The light of the Flame shall be with us always. And we will avenge ourselves of the wrongs heaped upon us by the Karran dogs!”

He paused and wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief, as the officers cheered with fervor, their faces bright with anticipation. Fondly, he beamed down at them, his loyal soldiers, dressed smartly in their black military dress, their long, black hair flowing from under their helmets, a few gray heads among them, some with their breastplate armor on. He knew they were ready, and he was proud of them. He had worked hard to train his soldiers and bolster morale, to hone them like the edge of a razor-sharp sword. Wield it he would!

Neevan stood off to the right of Ferman near the front. She was thrilled. The horse-head patch on her sleeve signified that she was an officer of the mounted soldiers. She would be leading a company of soldiers against the Karran, and she knew she would be seeing battle in the next few days. The daughter of a fallen commander of the Great War, she had trained for years for this day. Her mother had not wanted her to become a soldier, but Neevan could not be dissuaded. She wanted to avenge the death of her father at the hands of the Karran. And the time was nearing.

Her brush with Clarian was not far from her mind. In fact, it kept going around and around. On the night she and Clarian bumped into each other, after she had regained her senses, she had sounded the alarm in the camp that she had seen an intruder. She omitted the part about having had a conversation with Clarian. She kept saying his name, Clarian. Then she became angry with herself for being disloyal and even thinking about a Karran in that way. What way was that? How could she? His hair had been brown and his round eyes blue, not slanted like hers with the slit-like pupils glowing green in the dark.

What business did she have to be thinking thoughts about a hateful Karran? She had never heard of any Maggan, male or female, having romantic thoughts about a Karran. It just wasn’t done. But still, she could see his earnest, handsome face before her.

Neevan knew she was attractive. Many Maggan men had tried to get her attention since she was a teenager, but she had rebuffed them all. Her mother had encouraged her on several occasions to be more open to the overtures of several men, one an officer and another a teacher, but she had remained steadfast to her goal of one day fighting the Karran. The Maggan army was made up mostly of men, but there were some women. She was proud that she was an officer, leading a force of hundreds of soldiers. She tried to refocus her attention on Ferman, the commander of the Maggan army.

He began to speak again. “We will march directly at the Citadel. I do not expect strong resistance. The Karran have no army, only a modest number of Citadel soldiers. They do know how to fight, make no mistake about that. But we have the greater numbers and the element of surprise. It will be difficult to be out in the open plain away from the forest. We will use tents and the occasional clump of trees to get out of the sunlight and get some sleep during the day. We will push long and hard during the nighttime, covering as much distance as possible. I expect us to reach the Citadel in five to seven days. The city should fall easily, but the Citadel itself is a high-walled stone castle and is well fortified. It may take some time to breach the walls or break through the gate. Now return to your units and prepare them to march. And may the Flame be with you!”

“The Flame!” shouted the officers in response.

As Neevan filed out of the tent, a fellow officer and admirer of hers, Kebran, approached her. “Neevan? What’s your assignment?”

“Hello, Kebran. My company will be out in front, as will most of the other mounted units. Our job is to scout the enemy and attack the flanks as well as protect the foot soldiers and get them in close enough to launch the attack against the city. How about you?” she asked.

“I’ll be bringing up the supply wagons in the rear. I always wanted to be a mounted soldier. Instead, I’m stuck with supplies.”

Neevan laughed. “Somebody has to keep us fed and watered. I can’t think of anyone better to do the job than you.”

“If you get hungry, you’ll know where to find me,” Kebran said with a grin as he turned off in another direction.

A lone messenger galloped hard through the night, pushing his horse ever faster as he sped past the last of the summer fields and down the road to the Citadel. The horse labored up the incline to the great wooden gates leading into the Citadel fortress.

“I come for Clarian!” the messenger shouted to the guards at the entrance. He slid off his horse, handing off the reins to a waiting soldier.

An officer appeared, and the messenger waved his dispatch pouch. “Follow me,” the officer said, and they set off at a run up the stone steps into the castle.

Moments later, the officer entered the officers’ sleeping quarters with the messenger at his side. Moonlight through the small casement windows faintly illuminated the room. Hurrying past several cots, the officer with the messenger in tow found Clarian’s bed and forcefully shook Clarian from his exhausted sleep.

“Clarian! Clarian! Wake up!”

Clarian sat up, rubbing his eyes and face, trying to focus on the two men beside his bed.

“Tell me.”

The messenger leaned forward and in a low voice, said, “The Maggan are on the march in great numbers.”

“Have you seen them with your own eyes?”

“Yes. They left the cover of the Forest of Darkness at sundown yesterday.”

“How fast are they marching?”

“They are coming slowly.”

The other officers in the room were now roused and sitting up.

Clarian ordered the officer, “Sound the alarm.”

The giant bell atop the Citadel tower slammed out a frantic tone that reverberated through the castle, over the city below the Citadel and across the training fields to the tents of soldiers sleeping there. Soldiers spilled out of their cots in the dark, groping for their clothing. Out among the tents, trumpeters blew their horns, signaling a hurried turnout in the face of danger. In the city, townspeople stepped out of their doorways wrapped in blankets, looks of fear twisting their sleep-laden faces. They didn’t have to be told what it meant. The enemy was coming.

High in the castle the Flamekeeper, jarred out of his sleep by the clanging bell, reached for his robe. The door of the chamber opened, and Dellan, his personal secretary, scooted in holding a lit candle. “Holy One?”

“Yes! Yes! What is it? Why is the bell ringing?”

“Word has come. The dark ones march on us. Clarian has called out the army.”

The night sky with its full moon gave way to the creeping dawn. With pink light spreading in the east, one could hear the Karran officers quietly giving orders. Behind the ridges that lined the dusty road out of the Forest of Darkness, columns of mounted soldiers and wagons of archers assembled in their appointed positions. Nervous horses snorted and stamped their hooves, jingling their harnesses.

It had taken three full days to get the Karran army into position in the ridge country up the road toward the Forest of Darkness—longer than Clarian had anticipated. Still, the maneuvers had been executed in good order. The Maggan had marched into the ridge country later than he had expected. Now on the dawn of the fourth day, as the Maggan camped and prepared to rest, Clarian moved his army into final position for the ambush.

Clarian stood behind a screen of foliage atop a ridge, observing the Maggan as they prepared to take cover out of the sun and to sleep, day being their night. Lillan and Martan stood at his shoulder. Rokkman, as liaison to the Flamekeeper, hovered next to them. The wind had come up, blowing hot and dry out of the west.

Each day just before morning light, the Maggan camped, pitched tents, fed their troops and slept until sundown. As the evening darkness fell, they struck out heading southwest toward the Citadel, following the road that leads there. It was curious, Clarian thought, that the Maggan had not sent out far-ranging scouting patrols, nor had they bothered patrolling their flanks along the ridges. Arrogance and overconfidence lead to defeat, and he planned to exploit them.

“Let’s call everyone together,” said Clarian. He turned and began half-skidding down the rocky face of the low ridge to his waiting horse, Ruttu, who was being held by a soldier. Lillan and Martan were not far behind him. They leaped onto their horses and rode away from the road and the Maggan, across rough terrain, disappearing into a maze of tall rock formations. After a short ride, they entered a grassy valley where the Karran army headquarters was encamped.

Clarian sent an aide to call all the commanding officers to a war council. Around a camp table under a clump of trees, leaning over a map, crowded by his officers, Clarian laid out his strategy. “Here is how our attack begins. Martan will send scouts to set fires, dragging behind them bundles of burning grass dipped in pitch. They will ride the length of the Maggan encampment from rear to front on both sides, along where the ridges rise up, setting the grasses on fire. The grasses are waist high and parched. Coming from the Great Grasslands, I know about grass. It is going to explode into flames. The wind is blowing in our favor. The Maggan won’t expect Martan to ride right into their camp as a guest, interrupting their sleep time. Ride fast, Martan.”

Everyone laughed, and Martan smiled, his face tense.

“The wagons carrying archers will dismount and climb up on the ridge tops above the enemy camp and formations. As soon as Martan’s scouts ride through the Maggan camp lighting the grasses on fire, your archers will ignite their pitch-dipped arrows wrapped with dry grass and shoot them into the camp area to set more fires. Target the tents and wagons. Then pick off the Maggan as they emerge from their burning tents.”

Clarian turned and pointed to Lillan. “As soon as the firestorm has started, you are to lead your mounted archers and immediately attack the supply wagons and the horse herds at the rear and drive off all their horses. And burn the wagons. We want to destroy their supplies and food. Attack from south and north of the road.”

Lillan nodded. “How much resistance can we expect?”

“The scouts report there is no rear guard.”

“Where’s Troban?” Clarian asked.

“Here,” called a young blond officer from the end of table. He was wearing breastplate armor and a metal and leather helmet.

“Troban, you are the last line of defense. You are all that stands between the enemy and the Citadel. You will attack the front of the Maggan column with your combined mounted archers and foot troops. You will blunt the enemy’s forward march and stop them. That is where the Maggan mounted soldiers are camped with their horse herd. Drive their horses down the road directly into our waiting hands. We can use the extra horses. Attack the head of the enemy column, keeping steady pressure on the enemy, and force them to fall back. Don’t overrun them. Their camp should be in confusion. Ride in carefully, not at a full gallop. Start picking off vermin. Remember, they can’t eat you with an arrow stuck in them.”

Grim laughter erupted, and grins spread across on the faces of the nervous officers. Clarian looked around the room peering at them, looking for questions or fears. His eyes fell at last on Lillan. He smiled and raised his eyebrows as if asking a question.

“I will wait until the attack by Lillan is successful, and Martan’s scouts have rejoined me and will then lead the attack on the Maggan city in the forest,” said a tense- faced Clarian. “We will destroy the enemy’s city. Let’s break them right here. In the name of the Flame.”

“In the name of the Flame!” they all called out in unison.

Lillan sat her jumpy horse, hidden by a long, low ridge on her left flank and a line of scrub trees in front. Behind her were three hundred mounted archers, waiting for the signal to attack. Directly in front of her were lines of Maggan supply wagons, unhitched from the draft horses that had pulled them all night. A large horse herd was grazing to her right, contained by horse handlers. Tents had been erected a few hours beforehand, and meals were being cooked. The tail end of the Maggan army was settling down to rest after a long night of marching. As the glaring sun rose higher, the last of the Maggan soldiers retired to their tents.

Lillan went over the attack plan in her mind. Her force would split into two groups. The right column would capture the horse herd and drive them away from the battle scene to a collection point where Karran soldiers and horse handlers could take over and redeploy them for use by the Karran army. Her second column would charge in among the supply wagons brandishing blazing torches, setting them on fire and destroying their cargo. She had given her subordinate officers their final instructions, and now all they had to do was wait for the signal to attack.