Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (68 page)

Salim studied the emir in return. ‘These – what did you call them? – these “Dokken”. These “Rakas”. We can trust them?’

Rashid was slow to respond, but eventually he said honestly, ‘The Dokken have been the secret enemy of the magi since the gnosis was gained – and that includes our own magi. Sabele would as soon destroy me as any Rondian mage. They may aid us now, for this shihad, but eventually they will turn on us. Eventually they will have to be dealt with.’

‘I would like to meet this Sabele.’

‘She is away in the north on some errand, Great Sultan, but her warleader is here. Arkanus is of Yuros, as most of them are, but he has been living in secret in Mirobez for many years. He has brought more of his Rakas here than I ever knew existed. There are hundreds.’ Rashid couldn’t keep the worry from his voice when he admitted, ‘Some may be more powerful than I.’

Salim looked at him and smiled. He placed a hand on Rashid’s shoulder. ‘You have my trust, my friend. You know that. You will find a way to contain them. This will be our greatest victory.’

Rashid bowed low. ‘We will not let you down, Great Sultan.’

Salim looked out over the plains, at the distant lines of the enemy. ‘We have brought Echor here. It is a gamble, but that is the nature of war.’

Rashid’s mind went back over a year, to that dimly lit room in Pallas, when his enemies had agreed to place a third of their own forces beneath his blade. He could still scarcely believe that Emperor Constant – or more particularly, Mater-Imperia Lucia – could be so ruthless. He shuddered a little as he recalled the callous way she’d asked, ‘Emir Rashid, if we give you Duke Echor and all his men, can your people destroy him?’

And now we are about to find out.

‘This is our hour, Great Sultan,’ he said confidently.

‘Then let us unleash our fury.’

*

The gnostic attack took Ramon utterly by surprise, and only the training imbedded into him at Turm Zauberin saved his life. As the brilliant energies crashed into him, his shields rose instinctively and repelled the worst of the blow, though it still scorched clothing and skin and seared his vision. For a few seconds he found himself dazed, and the windskiff faltered and started drifting aimlessly, only the gnosis already imbued in its prow keeping it from tumbling towards the earth.

He shook himself, tried to rattle his brain back to awareness, and poured more energy into the little vessel. It started to rise, but still he could see nothing through the shifting fogbank.

he sent, too stunned to comprehend why another mage would assault him.
Is it because I’m Silacian?

Another bolt hammered into his back, but this time he was ready and easily repulsed it. The women pilot-mage shouted aloud, and this time he recognised the language.

Sol a mio, she’s
Keshi
!
His mind reeled at the sheer impossibility of it all:
They’ve got magi! They’ve got the gnosis!

Then the other pilot-mages replied to her, and their shouts started ringing across the sky as they joined the pursuit.

His vision cleared and he returned fire, aiming not at the mage but at her upper mast, where he hoped her shields would be weaker. It worked: his mage-bolt burnt through the ropes lashing her sail to the mast, the triangular sheet of canvas tore away and fell over her
and she started screeching furious imprecations as she tried to free herself. The bottom of the sail was still tied to the boom, which was making it even harder for her to struggle out from under the heavy folds. As she wrestled with the waxed material, she unbalanced the little craft and it slewed sideways before losing all momentum. It fell away behind him as he soared onwards.

Her companions were closing in though, so Ramon couldn’t risk staying to finish her off – not when a whole secret army – an army with
magi!
– was headed for Duke Echor’s oblivious right flank, where the Thirteenth were stationed.

He pulled the wind into his sails and fled, and as the two other Keshi windcraft dived after him, he sent his thoughts questing forward, filling them with as much intensity as he could manage.

Calling her name crystallised all the emotions inside him and pulled him past all the trivialities of
Do I? Don’t I? Does she? Doesn’t she?
They all resolved into a single thought:
I have to warn her!

He knew instantly that she would not hear him, for his mental voice had crashed into a gnostic veil cutting off all communications from the aerial scouts to the army. Such veils took a long time to prepare, and a whole heap of skill and experience.

They’ve got some rukking powerful magi – and they
knew we were coming
!

For a second a second horrible thought hit him:
The Keshi captured Alaron and took the Scytale.
But then the immediacy of his peril took over. Another blast of energy struck his shields: the other Keshi pilots were closing in on him. They must be pulling as much air into their sails as he was – maybe even more, for they were catching up with him. He gritted his teeth, decided he would have to risk ploughing into the earth and dived down into the fog, skimming the spears of a regiment of Keshi soldiers who bellowed in shock as he appeared above them.

They reacted immediately with a salvo of arrows that battered his shields, and then he was past them. The Keshi pilots were now almost level with him and he had to fight hard to keep his sense of direction
as they played hide-and-seek in the roiling mists. Distances flew by as they exchanged ineffectual mage-bolts, and then, quite abruptly, he was out of the fog and into clear sky. Below him were the plains of Shaliyah, spreading for miles.

It had been – what? Two hours? Just two hours ago he had left on patrol, and in that time, the whole world had changed.

They have magi!

The plains had also changed: now they were full of fighting men.

Duke Echor had positioned his army so it was arrayed north to south, facing the city, which was currently disgorging rank after rank of Keshi, marching in good order, armoured and bristling, and fanning out in well-rehearsed precise formations as they streamed towards the Rondian lines. There were uncountable numbers of them massing at the northern flanks, preparing to attack.

Duke Echor’s army was arrayed to counter them, and as Ramon surveyed the deployment, it struck him that the duke could not possibly have been aware of the forces in the mist at the southern flank. He’d been out-thought and outmanoeuvred. This was not supposed to happen. And neither were enemy magi supposed to exist.

We’re in trouble …

Worst of all, from up here Ramon could see a great yellow-brown cloud on the far horizon, rolling in from the north like a massive boulder. A fierce wind was beginning to pick up too, and with a start he realised what he was looking at: a legendary Keshi dust storm. He’d heard that the natives believed afreet were responsible for sucking up the sands of the desert and hurling them across the plains, but whether magic-made or natural, this was not a good time for one to strike. He was beginning to think it was no coincidence.

He was just looking behind him, trying to spot his pursuers, when the first breath of the northerly hit him, buffeting his little craft. He turned her across the wind, trying to hold her steady, when he heard more Keshi cries, and the enemy skiffs shot out of the fog behind him—

To his surprise, rather than converging to take him down, the two
Keshi windskiffs appeared to give up, for they wheeled and headed back towards the city at full speed. He exhaled in relief. It looked like the thought of facing a properly trained Rondian mage full-on was still intimidating …

Then he turned to face forward again and immediately realised why the enemy mage-pilots had fled. It was nothing to do with the innate superiority of the Western magi; the desert storm had to be moving impossibly fast, because in the few seconds he’d been looking away, it had blotted out half the sky. The wall of darkness was rolling inexorably towards the northern flank of Duke Echor’s army. Lightning flickered in its bowels.

It’s going to dump all over us. I’ve got to land before it hits …

He hauled on the sheets and dragged the tiller about, setting course towards the banners of the Thirteenth and travelling at a reckless speed. He suddenly realised that he was the last Rondian skiff still in the air. There was a sandy space before Duprey’s command group and he ploughed into it at breakneck speed. The moment he touched the ground, he was out of the skiff and running towards Duprey. The legion commander was shouting orders as his frontline maniples formed up. Ramon burst through the ring of men, shouting, ‘Legate! Legate Duprey! The enemy are in the mist in front of us,
and they have magi!
’

Everyone turned towards him.
Impossible
was the word in every mouth, but he did not give anyone a change to voice it.

‘It’s true, sir, I swear!’ he shouted. His eyes went to Severine as he cried, ‘We have to warn the duke!’

‘Wait, calm down!’ Duprey replied, raising a warning hand to stop Severine. ‘What are you saying? Are there renegade Ordo Costruo here?’ They’d all heard rumours of defectors.

‘There were enemy mage-pilots –
Keshi
! Three of them chased me! – and they have
thousands
of soldiers on the ground—’

‘Catch your breath, Sensini,’ the legate ordered. ‘You’re panicked.’

He said it as much to steady those around him
, Ramon thought, but the words still stung. ‘
Rukka mio!
I am not panicked! They’re out there, huge numbers of them, and they have magi!’

He heard the whispers running like wildfire through the ranks as those in earshot passed the news back. Tyron Frand looked worried, but Renn Bondeau and the Andressans were dismissive. He didn’t care about them, but he could see Duprey closing up his mind.

‘I have orders to anchor the right and hold,’ the legate said firmly, ‘and that is what we will do.’

They were all standing on a rise below the cliffs where the wagons were placed, overlooking the dried-up riverbed, and as the legate spoke, Ramon realised the fogbank was drifting closer – almost as if it were alive.
Or controlled
.

‘Sir, I saw Keshi footmen, coming right at us. We’ve got to wheel right and set to defend,’ he tried again.

‘Sensini is spooking at shadows,’ Renn Bondeau snickered. ‘Ten to one it’s a herd of camels and a flock of birds.’

Ramon flushed. ‘Legate Duprey, please! They’ll be here in minutes.’

Duprey gazed at him steadily. ‘My orders are to hold here, and advance when the enemy break. I will follow those orders until they are countermanded! Return to your post.’ He glanced up at the ridgeline behind the legion. ‘Your place is with the baggage.’

The implicit insult burned, as did the looks on the faces of the other magi. He bunched his fists, turned to Severine.

she sent back, though he was sure he could hear doubt in her mental voice.

Duprey turned away and addressed the gathered tribunes and magi. ‘We will deploy as ordered. This changes nothing, gentlemen, not unless Sensini’s report is verified. We will array for pursuit, not for defence. All of you, get to your positions now!’

Rufus Marle echoed the orders with a feral snarl, driving the men and magi away, his natural bloodlust clearly rising at the thought of a fight. Bondeau, Korion and the rest of the magi exuded their normal sense of invincibility. Even Kip was looking at him sceptically.

he sent to the Schlessen. <
Be ready.>

Kip responded with a jocular swagger.

He turned back to Severine.

he exhorted her.

Her face was torn.

he said. In that instant he was being totally honest.

She flinched. <
Don’t toy with me
.> She hurried away, not looking back.

He bit his lip, but let her go.

After a moment he ran back to the skiff, leapt in and took it to the ridgeline above, where Storn and the Tenth Maniple waited. The ridge wasn’t terribly high, but it still afforded him views over the whole battlefield.
Our front line should be up here, not down there – but Echor obviously thinks he’s untouchable
.
He thinks he doesn’t need tactics, just magi
. The winds were still rising and the sand in the air was beginning to sting. Sol knew how much damage it would do when it hit the southern flank with its full force.

Storn hurried to his side and reported, ‘We’ve got the wagons unhitched—’

‘Then hitch them again,’ Ramon snapped at him. ‘
Now.
We need to be ready to move them.’

The tribune blinked. ‘What? But—’

‘I know you’ve only just unhitched them, but you need to listen to me, okay? So just do it.’

‘The men won’t like it, sir.’

‘The men will like it plenty when they realise what’s happening. The enemy is out there in that fog, Storn: they’re hiding there, waiting for us.’

Storn peered into the oncoming mist and sniffed, then looked puzzled. ‘It’s not moving with the wind, sir,’ he started.

‘Tell that to Duprey,’ Ramon grunted. He looked south, to the broken fortress at the near end of the line of hills, about a mile away. ‘Get that skiff loaded onto a wagon: there’ll be no more flying today. If we need to pull back, we make for that ruin to the south.’

Storn frowned. ‘Rondian legions don’t retreat, sir – we never have to.’

Ramon ignored that. ‘Have we got anyone scouting to the south? We don’t want to find a bunch of Keshi up our rukking arses.’