fortress of dragons.html (62 page)

subtle rise of the land over two days came downhill at once, grassland pasturage spread out for a long, long, uninterrupted descent to the cultivated plain. The view captured the eye, distracted the wits, suddenly beset with the scale of that descent, while the sky flickered with no natural storm.

But the Dragon Guard advanced, men who had stood before worse than this. The Prince's Guard moved, and so did Ryssand and Nelefreissan and Murandys, earliest ready, a wall of iron to shield men still preparing.

Were it not for the courage of the scout the army would have had no warning until an assault disorganized their line of march. "Bear east!"

Cefwyn said. "Dragons! Ryssand! Hold center! Panys to the right!

Bring the blackguards out in the open!"

Messengers sped and banners moved outward under the flash of lightning. As Panys' line formed, light midlands cavalry probed the border of the woods—and rapidly fell back before a howling outrush of motley armed men.

Irregulars, the Saendal, armed with axes and pikes and bows, and the force with which they charged was considerable even across the slope and on the uneven ground. Brigands, hirelings, hill bandits who regarded no law but gold, hire, and murder… with them Murandys'

stolid peasant infantry proved of some use, standing for a first taste of battle largely because they did not regard the trumpet signal that called them back, and for a moment there was a sharp contest, before some of Maudyn's forming right wing alike began to give backwards, disengaging in the distance across the hill.

"Hold fast!" Cefwyn shouted, chafing to have the rest of the heavy horse move up from behind. He chosen to engage the brigands'

ambush quickly on this eastward fringe of woods, to keep the enemy from harrying their flank. Two of his allies, Sulriggan and Osanan, were still behind the lines, equipping their heavy horse to bring them forward, please the gods, at some convenient time: damn Sulriggan's lackluster drills!

Ryssand, however, had moved with dispatch, and so had Murandys, spreading their forces behind the immediate deployment of the red-coated Dragon Guard and the company of light horse who went at the ready.

fortress of dragons.html

And granted Ryssand's naive peasants who had gotten in the way of the Guard and trammeled up their advance, those peasants still had made a line, a line they must hold long enough for the heavy horse to set itself in order. He was sure now Tasmôrden's main force lay closer than that streamside he had planned to have for a battlefield, never dreaming Tasmôrden would give him the advantage of the higher ground, but knowing it had its disadvantages, too, in the very momentum it gave them.

Traps were more than possible.

"Guelens, Maudyn, damn it,
Guelen Guard
!—Tell him so, boy!

Ride!"

If Ryssand's and Murandys' peasant farmers yielded more ground on the flank, where they had crowded together, he had to trust the Guelens, the city troops among them, would account the skirmish with the Saendal their sort of brawl. And as he shouted the order another messenger of the Guard scrambled to horse and was off behind the confused wing to reach Lord Maudyn.

The embattled Dragons, too, under Gwywyn, bore toward the tangle of the peasant line, not where he wanted them situated, for this attack he was certain was meant to create as much confusion as it could, pouring downhill at the back of his right wing if he had formed early, at very least keeping him from coming onto that slope unreported to the enemy.

"Majesty!" Now,
now
, there was a general movement of Sulrig-gan's heavy horse from out of that screen of carts and forest. Cefwyn settled his shield and stilled Kanwy with his knees, putting him to this side and the other to settle his restless forward impulse. That would be the difficulty, with all the men: the impulse to charge downhill. Discipline; discipline: a peasant army could not restrain itself; veterans could scarcely restrain themselves when tumult surrounded them and deafened them to signals.

"Lance!" he shouted at his pages, and the solid ash arrived within his grip. His guard had gathered around him, and now others of his house guard had arrived, the heavy-armed center of the Dragons and the Prince's Guard, Gwywyn's ordinary command, solid heart of Guelen force. Panys' younger son, near him, caught away from his father's command, had his grooms fighting to further tighten a cinch, the fortress of dragons.html

horse wild-eyed and resisting.

And in the skirmish with the lad's recalcitrant horse, one of those cursedly ridiculous incidents that precede battle, for some reason, no reason at all, he found himself in high good spirits, all the strictures and obligations of kingship fallen away from him.

"Dragons!" he shouted out, sending Kanwy on a restrained, restless pace near Anwyll's command. "Trumpeter, sound out! Form the line!

Banners! Form and stand! By the plan!"

Banner-bearers spread out, signaling men where their companies should be. And, unraveling the chaos that had threatened the right wing, the veteran Dragons answered quickly to the trumpets and the movement of the banners and set position on the left.

Osanan drew his men into line: that was the centerward edge of the left wing; and Panys and the Guelens maintained the skirmish on the right wing, while Sulriggan's company moved in feverish and wasteful haste, crossing to the fore of the Prince's Guard, not the rear as he ought—damn the man! Cefwyn thought, but it was ineptitude, not treason.

More slowly, with laudable precision, Ryssand, Murandys and Nelefreissan, heavy horse and the center of the line, took their place and stood firm.

In the distance Maudyn's trumpeter sounded out another call that called the right wing to desist pursuit: the engagement there, which Cefywn could not see from the left wing, had become a downhill rout it was not Maudyn's choice to pursue: gods knew whether the peasant infantry remembered that trumpet signal, or knew theirs from Tasmôrden's.

More precise than the trumpets, the banners were a constant signal; and three more king's messengers hovered close at Cefwyn's side, awaiting orders that would send last-moment changes to the line, to answer whatever surprises Tasmôrden had contrived.

There was a moment that the army was poised, prepared. Everything they had done toward this moment came to the test.

The wooded ridge was to their left, a steep, brushy range of boulders that spilled away in a wedge downhill; a narrow band of woods played out to their right and gave way to meadow and a broad plain fortress of dragons.html

below, curtained close at hand on the left by the ridge.

But out across the plain and under the shadowed sky, all but obscured by the ridge, a keen eye could make out the regularity of cultivated land… it was a moment before Cefwyn was sure what he saw, but once he saw, there was no mistaking it.

It was the cultivated border of a town, its sheep walls and winter brown barley fields. This slope met the end of the cursed ridge that had kept them from joining forces with Tristen and their southern neighbors.

And at the very bottom of the slope, all but obscured by the downward fall of the hill, the massed forces of an army.

Tristen, he thought at first, seeing black banners. But Tasmôrden had claimed the High Kingship; and those lines held nothing of the bright banners that should be with Tristen, nothing of the White Horse of Ivanor, the Heron banner of Lanfarnesse.

No. It was not Tristen.

"He is there!" Cefwyn cried aloud. He had good eyes, better than most, and he pointed for those who might see once they looked.

"Tasmôrden's waiting for us below! We've come to Ilefínian,
and
we've met our enemy!''''

"Ilefínian!" Anwyll of the Dragons took up the shout. "The gods for Ylesuin!"

"The gods for Ylesuin and the Lady Regent!" Cefwyn shouted back, and loyal men of the Dragons echoed him.

The skirmish over by the woods had surely been a signal, messengers fled back to Tasmôrden, warning of their arrival, a light-armed force that carried word what they were, and in what numbers, and perhaps, essential to one who relied on traitors, word whether Rys-sand's banner flew among the rest.

It did, and if Tasmôrden's men had lingered to report how they ordered their line, why, it flew centermost, where he had ordered it to be, foremost of Ylesuin's defense, after all.

Tristen rode in the world at a steady, ground-consuming pace, with all the south at his back, while the gray space grew violent with lightnings and that black Edge appeared which had appeared at the Lord Regent's death… so vivid a sight Tristen had difficulty knowing fortress of dragons.html

what was the world of Men and what was the other place. Chill wind blew out of that gulf and threatened to sweep them all away into it: at one moment and in the white fire of lightning he felt the whole world tilted and sliding, and yet when he made himself look squarely between Dys' black ears it was no different than the world had ever been.

"Do you see anything?" he asked those about him, and yet knew it was foolish of him to ask. "Do you feel the cold?"

"The cold, yes, my lord," Crissand said: Uwen did not answer, but Tristen doubted any Man without the gift had perceived what he saw or felt. He hoped they did not, for the cold was bitter and the view unsettling to the heart… but courage, these Men did have, to face what came.

The town rose before them, veiled by fire-blackened orchards, its gates shut, and more than shut, warded. He felt the strength of it even here, warding that might admit those blind to it, but not him. He sent Owl out, as far as Owl dared go, to try to find a way for him, but Owl turned back suddenly as if he had met a barrier, and suddenly the horses went as if they trod on eggshells, sniffing the wind for what no one could see.

Yet the shadow of a little girl appeared walking before them down that lane of burned orchards… gone for an hour and two and now back again, under the sky laced with lightning and muttering with thunder. Then, with her, hand in hand, Auld Syes appeared, looking like some country wife walking with her little daughter.

"There's the child," Crissand said in wonder, as if he could not see the mother. And Cevulirn said nothing, whether he saw or not.

Then Sovrag rode forward, swearing there was winter in the air again, and he had seen sleet on the wind, though the smell in the air was rain and burned wood.

Immediately behind him came old Pelumer, with little fuss, only silently joining them. And last came Umanon on his great destrier, with his guard. They all were to the fore now, all the lords.

"Shall we ride up to the gates and ask politely?" Umanon asked. "Or where is Tasmôrden, do you suppose?"

Umanon asked, and Tristen looked back at the stony ridge that spilled fortress of dragons.html

downhill behind them in a tumble of great boulders that ended with abandoned orchards and weed-grown fields, and the question wrung his heart, for after so long and hard marching they had come almost within reach of one another… almost within reach, but not in reach at all, and not within his protection.

There was Tasmôrden, he thought, and forgot to say so, his wits were so distracted with the threat aloft and the threat of the walls before them.

"I see the child," Uwen remarked in surprise. "Walkin' wi' someone, she is."

The light dimmed as if a dark cloud had gone over the sun, then dimmed further. Tristen looked up at a slate gray pall that streamed over the tops of the charred trees at their left. In the next moment a gale blasted through the trees, tearing the banners sideways, throwing Owl tumbling. Horses turned from the gale and riders fought them back to a steady course as the trees shed a sleet of broken twigs.

Shadows gathered out of that orchard, not the shadows of the overwhelmed sun, but Shadows from out of the depths of ruin, Shadows that flowed like ink in the gust-torn brush, with wafts of cold air. Thunder muttered above them, and lightning sheeting through the clouds whitened the black trees, but did nothing to relieve the flow of darkness seeping from woods and rocks.

"Something's beside us," Crissand said anxiously, and cries of dismay arose from behind them.

"Ride," Tristen said, urging Dys forward, for what swept about them felt to be neither friend nor foe, only the outpouring of magic reaching into dark places and drawing out all the Shadows imprisoned there. He swept them up, urging them also against the walls where the enemy had his citadel.

The heart of all that was wrong was in Ilefínian, and how they should pass its gates, he did not know.

Lightning chained across the sky, setting all that was bright in unnatural clarity against a darkened sky, and thunder cracked above the army's heads. A warhorse broke the line and charged forward, fighting his rider's signals, prompting other horses to break forward only to be turned back, and Cefwyn reined Kanwy about to shout at the Dragons to stand fast, no matter the wrath of heaven or the folly fortress of dragons.html

of horses.

The trumpeters sounded out loud and long, king's men, experienced and sensible, calling out for attention; and men heard that, through ears half-deafened by thunder, those who could not hear their king's voice. The line that had wavered steadied.

Cefwyn rode Kanwys out to the fore, riding across the slope in front of the red ranks of Dragon Guard, the black of the Prince's, and shouted out, over and over, "The gods for Ylesuin! The gods against sorcery! Gods save Ylesuin!" while the men, encouraged, shouted back,

"The gods for Ylesuin! Gods save the king!"

They had men enough armed, now, and the line was formed. The enemy had not come upslope after them, only prudent; but neither had they taken their greatest opportunity, that moment of confusion in the Saendal's assault on their flank. If sorcery helped Tasmôrden, in whatever balance it warred with Emuin and Tristen, at least it had not helped Tasmôrden come over that hill in time to catch them unprepared.

Tasmôrden waited instead in the valley, prepared to receive a cavalry charge.

But traps were possible, trenches and stakes and pikemen and other such unpleasant means to turn the charge of heavy cavalry into carnage: for that reason among others Cefwyn would not give the order to rush headlong downhill, letting his troops slip prudence and outrace the trumpet signals and the reach of couriers. He saw with satisfaction that Maudyn had completely crushed the attack from the woods.