Dragon Ultimate (24 page)

Fesken had seen this, and also saw that his dragons were holding their line.

"To the dragons," he ordered. "Form up on the dragons, in square." The building shook as more and more of the things crashed up against it and wedged themselves there while yet more piled in behind them.

Sergeant Turgan blew the command for forming a square while Lieutenant Ballard and Lieutenant Shakes ran to take command of two clumps of spearmen.

By dint of great effort, they were able to bring the clumps together. More men joined them. The brutes needed to get close in to seize men in those massive arms and bring their jaws to bear, but the spears jabbing at their eyes kept them at bay. Their clumsy brachts waved and their jaws snapped in frustration and they emitted chilling wails. Cornets screamed, sergeants bellowed, men screamed and either ran or stood their ground with spears raised.

With a clatter the front portion of Gideon's building collapsed onto the horde of swamp beasts that were packed against it, pinned there by the pressure of those behind them, who were still emerging from the swamp.

Columns collapsed along the side of the house, and the dock, meanwhile had already splintered. In the stables the monsters tried to eat the horses, which resisted with flashing hooves.

Out in the dark, many men had slowed their steps as the initial panic subsided. They heard dragons roaring and the thud of terrible blows. They heard the dogs barking and the cornets shrieking. They came to a halt, then almost every one of them turned and ran back to the fray, swords in hand.

Filled with rage where before there had been simply fear, the recovered soldiers came up to reinforce the line, and the swamp beasts were stopped. The tide of battle swayed back and forth for a while, but the swamp beasts could no longer break the Legion line. For several minutes they continued to die on the line, then there came a sudden change, a howl came from the swamp as if from the throat of a giant. A blast of cold air swept over them and the monsters turned as one and hopped and staggered back into the river and subsided beneath its surface.

The men and dragons on the line stood there, chests heaving, sweat running down their bodies, staring wide-eyed while silently giving thanks that they had been spared. Dead beasts were piled in windrows along the front of the dragon line. The bodies of men and horses were spread around the stables. More dead beasts were pinned under the ruins of Gideon's main building.

Commander Fesken found old Hundswide's body in the ruins. The pilot had been caught by a falling beam when the main hall came down. He was added to the casualty list written down by Sublieutenant Gink. There were almost two hundred names on that list. The Bea regiment had been struck a hammerblow. It would be days before they got down to Fort Kenor.

Giles led them now, through the long grass growing down to the banks of the river Oon, just visible at the edge of vision in the west. Giles led them, though he was afraid. Each step brought them closer to their quarry, and this terrified him. He could not even carry the charred fragment of a man's thighbone that bore the mark of the Great Being that they tracked. Lessis kept the bone in her satchel. Giles sensed him though. The Lord Who Burned Men left a trail that was seared into the world like a brand, openly visible for those, like Giles, who were sensitive to such things.

The nights were terrible. It was hard for Giles to sleep, knowing as he did what they were seeking, whom they were following. Giles was not a timorous fellow, nor physically inept, but he was very much afraid of the power he had felt when he touched that bone. The dark powers always left such traces, for they burned the very stuff of the universe to do their work. For Giles, the touch was like that of red-hot iron.

And yet he fought down his fears. Lessis helped him. Sometimes he detected her sly little spells. They were visible to him, of course, things of wisps and threads too fine for his sensitivity alone to pick them out. But he knew they were there. She burnished his courage, letting its gleam keep him focused on the great task he faced.

He had trained since childhood for this role, which had always promised to be dangerous. Sensers like himself, that tiny minority gifted with the power, were sought out and employed by the Office of Insight. Often they tracked criminals for the witches. It was his misfortune to be called to the service of a greatwitch, one of the most powerful of them all. He had thought he might track evil men, murderers, and the like. He had never dreamed of following this sort of malign power.

"Can you follow him?" said the witch.

"Yes." He could follow such a power to the ends of the world.

Once or twice he would say that it was madness to follow the Great One. Lessis would smile sadly, but she did not accept his plea.

"We must find him and destroy him," she would say.

"How can we destroy him? He bestrides the world like a colossus. He burns with power beyond our imaginings."

"He is vulnerable, child."

At his look of disbelief, Lessis's anger would spark. "Do you think my sisters have been idle?"

The young man stared at her. "Lady, I know very little of these great secrets. You know that."

"You were trained in Andiquant. You were given classes on history, including recent history. You know who this thing is that we follow."

"Lady, he moves as a mountain in this world. He will trample us and suck our souls from our very bones."

Lessis's eyes would flash at this. "I have fought this demon before, child. I am still here." A shrug. "Alas, so is he."

Giles stared at her, sudden realization blossoming in his eyes. Normally, witches seemed imbued with power. He detected very little projection from her, and had assumed that the quiet exterior was all there was to her.

Giles mastered his terror. "I was trained for this mission; I will not abandon my duty."

"I understand your fear, young Giles. This is no man, no wizard, nor even elven lord that we go up against. This one is a part of the world that was never laid in its place. It was never meant to live like this, separate from the world it created. It has become a fell spirit, grown dark and evil over the aeons. It is indeed terrifying to imagine bringing down such a mighty foe."

Lessis fixed him with her pale eyes. "But, Giles of Corve, I say we can dare the worst, we can extinguish the fear with our courage. We can surprise our enemy who thinks we are weak and easily terrified. That is what our enemy always fails to grasp. In his heart, fear and calculation rule, and courage knows no part."

Giles had taken some renewed heart from her words. The witches knew of a way to destroy the Great Being. Lessis knew his weak spot. They would not fail! Could not fail. Could not.

Still Giles rode ahead, to stay away from the bone that he felt in her saddlebag. Lessis rode beside Lagdalen, with Mirk just behind.

Lessis knew her great enemy far better than she had during her first encounter with him. He had first tried to decapitate the empire, then helped fan the flames of rebellion in Aubinas. Both attempts had failed, and he'd seen that it would be futile to try that route again in the Argonath. So he had released the plagues. It was a move they had expected, and they had done their best at countering it. To some extent they had succeeded. Marneri and Kadein were still functioning. The others were in worse shape, indeed Ryotwa was almost destroyed, but the Legion armies were still in the field, and the white ships ruled the seas. True, the ranks of the Legions were severely depleted, but they were still there. With the help of a Legion from the Isles, they would hold off the Padmasans. Or so it was fervently hoped in Andiquant.

But with the addition of the Baguti of the Irrim Gan and the fell Lord Waakzaam, the equation became more tricky. Birds with warnings had gone south already. She prayed that General Tregor would take action to shore up his northern flank.

And beyond her immediate concern for Tregor's flank, it was a little shocking to her to find their enemies cooperating like this. After the fall of Heruta she had thought the remaining Four Doom Masters would deadlock, two on two, and lose all decisiveness. That would ensure they would stay on the defensive and eventually be destroyed. She had never thought the Four would bury their pride and truckle to Waakzaam. Yet they had, despite their legendary hauteur. They had recognized that they needed a fifth, to break the deadlock, and they had made a devil's bargain with Waakzaam. Fools! He would suck their very souls from their bones before he was finished with them!

They continued due south, hours passing slowly as they rode on elk paths through the tall grass. As they traveled, the grass was changing character; shorter varieties were taking over, the horses' bellies were above the grass for the first time. Away to the right, Beruyn came riding up. Mellicent and Ward were ahead and on the left.

Once every couple of hours a hawk would circle down out of the sky to alight on Lessis's arm and giver her a report on movements around them. Large bodies of horsemen were abroad and moving parallel with them, but closer to the Oon.

They drew together at the noon hour. The trail food was tough and chewy, and their water was low. Beruyn thought there would be water ahead, perhaps another hour. Mirk was not so sure. They drank carefully, aware that finding water by the end of the day was essential, for the horses were in need of a long drink.

Lessis contrasted her current situation, chewing pemmican and dried herbs and washing it down with stale water, with her brief period of retirement. She had lived in her own house in lovely old Valmes, a beautiful house, built of the Vaimes white stone, with blue-painted shutters and a pear tree in the backyard.

She sighed. It seemed that it was not to be her lot in life ever to live in that house and enjoy its peace. Only once in the last nine years had she been there to enjoy the pears. She had so enjoyed using the skills of witchcraft to help the crops and the animals. Caring for the sick and the elderly. Living in her house, meditating on her pear tree.

Alas, the necessities of the state had intruded once again. Her work was not yet done.

They had barely remounted before Giles turned, with concern on his face. "I sense something, Lady. Many men, I think, riding this way…"

Lessis turned to Mirk, who exchanged a look with the others. Beruyn jumped down and put his head to the ground. He listened for a long while before rising. "Yes, there are hooves, but distant still."

"We'd better move up to the rise and hide over the crest. We don't want to be seen by Baguti."

The movements reported by the last hawk had accelerated, it appeared.

"They must have crossed the big river," said Beruyn.

"They're not of the Irrim tribes, then," said Mirk.

They turned away from the Oon and rode hard for the eastern horizon. By good fortune they topped a long shallow rise and found a small watercourse, trending south toward the Argo. There they pulled up, tucked the horses down out of sight, and went up to the crest of the rise to watch.

After an hour or so, a dark smudge appeared on the far western horizon. The smudge grew swiftly, and soon they caught gleams of metal and the movements of individual horses as an army approached, moving across their front at a distance of about four miles. A torrent of horses and men flowed past them for another hour before all were past. It was even longer for the last of them to disappear over the horizon.

Eventually they remounted their horses and rode south, following in the wake of the Baguti army, moving slowly and cautiously. Lessis had a hawk constantly hovering above them, changing birds as she rode every few miles, taking reports every few minutes.

The Baguti kept on due south, moving swiftly.

Mirk conferred with Lessis, and they decided to swing away to the southeast. They had to find water, and the Baguti wouldn't leave much for them at any water holes directly ahead.

Lessis dispatched another bird to Fort Kenor.

They rode through medium-length grass all afternoon, and Mirk's horse smelled water an hour before dusk. They followed a small stream down to a narrow lake that had contracted to little more than a pond. Wild animals had been to the water in great numbers. The tracks, of bison and deer for the most part, cut up the soft mud along the shoreline.

A turtle plopped into the water. The horses drank. Mirk refilled their canteens by pushing out into the middle, where the water came up to his neck and it was still clear.

Lessis and Lagdalen bathed together to one side, behind a willow tree for modesty's sake while the men bathed on the muddy shore. The water felt delicious after the long day in the saddle.

After they were dry they gathered near where Mirk had tethered the horses and ate pemmican and flat biscuit. Lagdalen also carried lime juice, and they each took a drop on their biscuits to prevent scurvy. Later they wrapped themselves in their blankets and slept on the hard ground while Mirk kept watch.