The Seer King: Book One of the Seer King Trilogy (63 page)

I could read no more of Malebranche’s lies. I crumpled the letter, threw it to the floor, and began to snarl an obscenity.

But before I could speak, the balled paper grew, turning, swelling, lengthening, and the parchment changed, and between the seer and myself was a huge snake, fifteen feet long, its body nearly as thick as my thigh, its fangs dripping, and a horrible hissing filled the tent.

Tenedos pulled back as it struck, then it turned on me, yellow eyes glaring, smoke pouring from its open mouth.

My sword was in my hand, and I slashed at the monster, but my blade passed harmlessly through the creature. Again I struck, as its head struck, lower jaw smashing into my arm, sending my sword spinning.

It threw a coil around Tenedos, and he gasped agony. Outside the tent, I heard shouts of alarm, but the guards would be far too late, as the snake drew back for its deathstroke, fangs oozing poison.

My dagger was in my hand and I flung myself on the serpent, my arm around it just below its head. Again I struck, and again I might have been stabbing air. But I’d at least enraged the beast, and it turned away from Tenedos, on me. I tried to block with the pommel of my knife, knowing death an instant away. But my blow struck true, thudding into cold muscle, not air, and the snake shrilled pain! I struck again, not knowing why the blade did no harm, but its butt seemed to agonize the apparition.

Its hiss became a scream, and it writhed, thrashing, smashing me against the tent’s wooden flooring. But I held on, and then I heard Tenedos cry out, half-strangling, “Silver! Kill it with silver!”

The pommel of my dagger! Once more I bashed at it, and the creature whipped back and forth, sending me rolling away. I was about to dive back on the monster, then remembered my belt of worked silver, and, in desperation, tore it free and jumped toward the snake’s head. Somehow I managed to loop it around the serpent, and began twisting, as if I could somehow strangle it.

The hissing scream grew louder, still louder, and the monster contorted, beating me against the floor, but I hung on grimly, nothing else in the world but my hands pulling at that belt, tighter, ever tighter, and then there came a final convulsion and the beast shuddered and was still.

I managed to get to my knees. Tenedos lay motionless, facedown, a few feet away. The tent door was ripped open, and there were soldiers there. Then Tenedos stirred, groaned, and pushed himself up to his knees.

“Ah gods,” he moaned. An officer ran to him, but the seer waved him away. “No. Wait” He carefully felt down his rib cage as he gasped for air. “I … think … they’re unbroken,” he managed. He tottered to his feet, and came to me.

“Are you all right?” I managed to stand, and felt pain shoot through me. But I, too, had nothing broken, even though every inch of my body was bruised.

“That bastard,” I said, as winded as Tenedos.

Tenedos turned to look at the snake’s body, and I followed. My eyes widened: The great beast was vanishing, wisping away in vile-smelling green smoke as I watched.

“Quick, Damastes! Give me your dagger! And your sword!” I obeyed, finding my sword in a corner. Tenedos took them and hobbled to the fast-vanishing body of the serpent. He touched the two blades to it, and chanted:

“Steel remember

Remember defeat.

Learn from silver

Feel the foe.

Remember your shame

Another time

Another place.

Then remember

Then atone

Then strike

At the heart

At the man

At the disgrace.”

By the time he finished, the monster’s body had vanished completely, and there was nothing left but the fast-vanishing stench. The soldiers were babbling, and Tenedos shouted for silence.

“Your guardsmen are dismissed. You did no wrong — what came, came from outside. Return to your posts. I am well.”

They obeyed. Tenedos touched his ribs and winced.

“I lied,” he said. “I’ll have a chirurgeon bind these for a few days.” He bent and picked up a decanter of brandy. “Ah. At least the demon left us with two glassfuls. Will you alter your habits for the moment?”

I did, and he found unbroken glasses and poured.

“Most interesting,” he mused, and he seemed completely undisturbed. “And very clever. I must meet this master sorcerer of Chardin Sher’s, for he is a man to learn from.

“What a subtle way to attack me, through you. I could sense no spell, since it was dormant until you did what you did to the letter.

“Malebranche deliberately wrote it to anger you, knowing you’d destroy it. I imagine there were other variations if you’d, say, thrown it into a fire, to produce the monster.

“Very clever indeed.”

“Maybe so, sir. But this is the second chance … third, if you count the fog-demons in Kait and allow for Malebranche’s involvement, that shit-heel has had to kill me. I’d like a chance to be a little clever with him.”

“You shall, Damastes, you shall, if the stars are right. Since Malebranche feels some special enmity toward you, I sealed your weapons to him. Perhaps, if you meet on the field of bat-tie, that will give you a bit of an advantage.”

“I don’t want an advantage, I want his guts for a winding sheet!”

“General á Cimabue, calm down. Drink your brandy.”

I did, and Tenedos took his own advice.

“Yes,” he mused, “Chardin Sher is proving himself an excellent enemy. It’s almost as if he had been listening to what you and Domina Petre said some time ago, about the need to strike for the enemy’s heart. Except that he’s taking it to its extreme.

“Very, very interesting. I think we should follow his fine example ourselves.”

• • •

Another letter reached me that shook me even more deeply:

Three weeks later, halfway through the Time of Change, our soldiers still only half-trained, we marched west against Chardin Sher.

I
NTO
K
ALLIO

We smashed over the border into Kallio an hour after dawn, scattering the light defenses like chaff. Seer-General Tenedos had found a new way of moving secretly.

The magicians he’d recruited had cast spells of normalcy, if that’s the correct description, so it appeared that the army was still at Entoto. The plan, which worked perfectly, was that an army moving in “silence” was impossible, so therefore it wasn’t happening.

Another thing in our favor was the time of year; no one ever, not ever, began a campaign halfway through autumn, for all the soldiers were busy building winter quarters, not intending to take the field until after the Time of Storms.

We moved fast, and our New Army showed its merits. Instead of taking sixteen days to reach the Imru River, we took four, moving in forced marches and abandoning those who could not keep up. Wagons that broke down or horses that gave out were turned over to the quartermasters bringing up the rear. They were to be repaired or stripped for parts, and the animals either healed or butchered for meat. As for the men who straggled, they were rounded up by provosts, informed they were no longer part of their units, and would join heavy work gangs, little better than slaves, until they proved their willingness or ability to march and fight.

This was the time for steel to be tempered.

The border between Kallio and Dara is no more than a creek, and their defenses were intended to do no more than give warning to Chardin Sher’s main force a day’s travel distant behind fortification.

We hit the border guards hard, but of course there were survivors who escaped to sound the warning. We didn’t pause, but marched on, all through that day, and by night we’d come on the Kallians’ camp.

As our magic and spies had told, Chardin Sher was building major fortifications. But he’d been doing it leisurely, not expecting our attack until spring, and so they were but half-finished. They would have been formidable, when complete. Pits and embedded stakes were used to cleverly divide the attacking force into separate elements. Once the attackers — our army — had been divided, then it would be led into killing zones where magic, archery, and spears would destroy us.

There were three defensive lines laid out. They began with a deep ditch, filled with brush to make the obstacle harder to cross. Just behind the ditch rose a steep earthen wall, about twenty-five feet tall. The wall was manned by the first line of defenders, then came the secondary ditch, wall, and its defenders; then a third, and then the army’s camp. But only the first line was finished, the second was half-built, and only the ditch was dug for the third. To go out in front of the lines was through one of the six gates, but these were barricaded shut and well defended.

Chardin Sher, not being a fool, had realized he’d challenged the entire Numantian nation, and so ordered conscription throughout Kallio. He had, in total, about a million men under arms, most still training, of course, and had moved almost 150,000 of them to the border. Against him marched a quarter of a million Numantians, with a million more being trained or shipped to Entoto. His willingness to wage war, merely counting heads, seemed absurd. But he’d taken the measure, or so he thought, of his foe, and would hardly worry about troops as easy to fool and destroy as we’d been on the Imru. I suspect he thought, correctly, that all Numantia was tired of the Rule of Ten’s ineptitude and ready for change. They may have been, but Imru, and Seer Tenedos, created a cause and a rallying point. Also, he no doubt intended to deal us a sharp defeat once more, and then negotiate or terrify the Rule of Ten into meeting his conditions.

Even seeing our army march toward his lines, Chardin Sher must have thought he still had time. Previously, we would have taken up battle positions that afternoon, then developed defensive lines over the next few days while each side decided its strategy, and only then would the two armies creak into battle.

Instead, we attacked at false dawn the next morning. Again, our new organization helped. Since we marched into battle order, with no supernumeraries and camp followers to shuffle aside, we were ready to move against the Kallian positions that had already been well scouted by Yonge’s skirmishers. Tenedos, his devoted adjutant Captain Othman, and the generals had developed our attack as we closed on the Kallians.

As if fooled, we even attacked into those zones intended for our destruction, as Chardin Sher had hoped. But since we knew his intent, we broke our army into completely separate forces before battle, so there was no real division; rather, it was as if separate armies were moving against the same goal. In command of the Left was General Hern, the Right General Le Balafre, and Seer-General Tenedos himself ordered the Center.

My cavalry, once more, was held back, but no one was upset, knowing horsemen cannot attack entrenchments. We would exploit any openings when they developed.

The Kallians were surprised, but fought back bravely, stopping the Center Wing cold as they came out of the first deep trench. The lead regiment should have ignored its casualties, and fought on. But their domina and company commanders were dead, and so they milled around, easy targets for arrows and spears fired from the wall above. Among them was Cyrillos Lineiges, and it was here that he first distinguished himself. As I’d thought, he’d done better than keep his old sergeant’s strips when sworn in — there were far too few experienced soldiers for him to hold no higher rank. Instead, after a few days’ probation, he was given a legate’s sash and a half-company of infantry. Promotions, in peacetime, come slow and hard. But in war, they shower like the monsoon for the brave and the lucky.

Linerges shouted for the troops behind him, still on level ground, to rip the Kallian stakes out of the ground and tie them together in threes. He seized the fallen regimental colors and, holding them high, scrambled out of the ditch, standing just below the wall, heedless of the arrow-storm coming down at him, and shouted, “Men who fear not death … attack!” There were enough of those yet living to scramble up the dirt wall, paying no heed to the defenders’ spear-shower, and fall on the Kallians with sword, dagger, and clawed hands, and then the enemy ramparts were a melee of confusion.

Then the tied stakes were thrown against the steep dirt walls and men of other regiments swarmed up them. Chardin Sher’s men on the wall wavered, and just then Le Balafre’s forces broke through on the right and, not much later, the Left Wing followed suit and the first wall was ours.

Other stakes were tied into bridges and thrown over the ditches, just as the storming foot soldiers tore away the barricades, smashed open the gates, and bugles sounded for the cavalry.

We went forward at the trot, long lines of horsemen moving toward the smoke and dust of battle, some streaming through the gates, other regiments flanking the entire battlefield.