The Storm's Own Son (Book 3) (3 page)

Gavro was closest of his new allies. Talaos hailed him, voice booming deep. "Gavro! I am here! Rally the others and retreat!"

The latter turned his helmed face toward him, shook it in amazement, and then nodded. Talaos made for the enemy. He roared, and power crackled along his blade. Most horses would have panicked at the terror of it, but not this one, not Honor.

The front ranks of the enemy here were light horsemen in a thin line, with heavy infantry behind. Talaos gripped his horse with his knees, let go the reins, and drew a javelin with his left hand. He focused his will on it, and it flared to life with blue-white energy. He hurled it. There was a crack in the air, and it struck the nearest foe like a thunderbolt. The enemy horsemen toppled with a blasted, burnt hole in his chest.

Now he had their attention.

He drew another javelin and did the same. Focus, flare, throw. Another horseman died, hurled backward from the saddle and dead before he hit the ground.

The footmen behind were not braced for a charge. He crashed into them with his long blade scything. Electricity crackled and power trailed glowing behind the sword as it moved. A man fell, cleaved diagonally from neck to lower ribs, and fell in two pieces. Another foe advanced on his left side, raising blade against his horse. He leaned in the saddle and aimed a kick full in the man's face that sent him toppling backwards in a spray of blood.

Talaos then wheeled and cleaved a foe's helm in half, and his head with it. Blue-white power sprayed outward from the wound along with the man's red blood. Then he wheeled again and drew another javelin his left hand.

Ahead of him was the enemy commander, the javelin-wielder. Talaos drew back, focused power on his own javelin, then hurled it. The commander raised his left hand, and there bound to it was a disc of copper. It flickered with green light. The enemy deflected the javelin in mid air as power flashed around the disc, and then hurled his own at Talaos with superhuman force.

Talaos wheeled and dodged, but it made no difference. The javelin aimed true and struck him anyway. He roared in pain as it pierced his breastplate, then pulled it back out with a flash of power and cast it aside. He charged the general at full gallop. As he went, he considered that if not for his armor, that javelin would have run him through.

To his right, another officer moved to block his path, equipped as one of high rank and probably a tribune. The man had a long sword and round shield with a blue lion on white. Talaos brought his long blade, arcing with his power, down on that shield, and with a flash it split in half. The sword cleaved into the foe's chest and he fell back, dead.

The enemy commander made to draw another javelin. Faint green light flickered in his right hand. After the last, Talaos had no illusions of dodging it. Talaos focused his mind. He knew what he had to do. The distance was not far, but his horse would be too slow. A few times before the world had seemed to slow down around him in battle. He knew in fact it was he who sped up. It drained him, but he would have to do so now.  Unlike before, he would have to try to do so consciously.

He focused his will, his intent, and his power.

The wind picked up again, and the rain grew stronger.

The commander drew back his arm. All around, the world became sluggish. Talaos rose to his feet in the stirrups. The commander threw, and the javelin soared across the plain.  Faster than anything on that plain but Talaos himself, it flew true and deadly. Talaos climbed to the back of his horse atop the saddle, drew his short blade to join the long, stood for a moment, and leapt.

Talaos flew through the air at the oncoming javelin. He turned, whirling with his long blade arcing around and down. Power crackled around it as it went. He twisted and cut the javelin in half a moment before it could pierce him. The pieces flew apart with a slow radiance of green and tumbled harmlessly sideways against him.

He flew at the enemy commander with both blades whirling. Green light flashed in answer, but his arc-lit blades cut through the shielding power. He scythed the enemy general from the saddle and sent him flying back from his horse in two pieces. Then Talaos whirled onward, leaping and spinning with his blades in motion. To the left, a slain foe, to the right, another. He sheared heads from shoulders and legs from bodies.

Confusion and chaos spread all around, unfolding so very slowly.

Talaos called to the sky, and lightning struck among the enemy troops on the plain.

He moved down the line of enemies. They were slow, weak, confused, yet presumed to strike at him and his own. He cut them down as they tried. One, then two, then more in a line. Cutting them apart from his fleeing friends. They began to move a bit faster. This time he sensed the change as it approached. He withdrew back toward his waiting horse.

An enemy horsemen wheeled, slowly, to block his way with leveled spear. He ran. He leapt. The horsemen sped up, step by step. Talaos flew behind his guard, short blade sweeping horizontally, and cut the man's head from his shoulders. Then he spun, landed, flipped, and vaulted into the saddle of his own horse.

All around him, both friends and enemies were speeding up. Things had changed. The enemy reacted with fear and confusion. They pulled back, trying to form ranks. His new allies wheeled and spurred their horses away, galloping toward Avrosa.

Far away, other enemy commanders were shouting amid the confusion, trying to organize their milling troops.  Talaos called lightning down to the ground between his friends and his foes. The enemy recoiled.

Then Talaos felt it. The beginning of exhaustion. The first hint of darkness.

He wheeled and rode his horse at speed along the gap between the confused enemy and his fleeing allies. Power crackled in his hands and on his brow. Light shone in his eyes, and he roared in primal fury at the hundreds of men facing him.

All today had faced choices. He chose to stand and protect those who fled.

He howled to the sky, pointed his right hand and his sword toward a place in front of the enemy line. Lightning struck from above. Men flew, blasted in all directions.

The darkness rose.

The enemy at last rallied. Arrows came flying his way, and a moment after, javelins. He cut one apart in mid air. Another struck his leg. Soon, one would strike his horse.

That wouldn't be right. The beast hadn't chosen. It obeyed, but it didn't understand.

He looked behind him. Maxano, Gavro, and the bronze-armored giant he presumed was Hadrastus had the rearguard in good order and riding at speed. Thousands more were already far ahead, in the sheltering reach of the artillery, and on their way to Avrosa.

In the sky, the storm directly above him was dense, roiling, and black, but toward the horizon in all directions, it had frayed, vanished, and stars sparkled in the sable sky.

Javelins and arrows. He wheeled and dodged, keeping his horse out of harm.

In wrath he called down another strike to his left. Thunder and flying corpses.

Then another before him. Smoke and charred bodies.

Then a last, to his right. Death and ruin.

Black exhaustion loomed within him.

The enemy near were in chaos, but behind and on either side, they were rallying in their thousands.

He wheeled his horse and galloped away. The enemy followed, slowed by the confused mix of infantry and cavalry, of wounded and healthy at its front.  Yet still, they followed. Ahead of him, his allies were at the gates. There was a great press of men there, waiting to get in. The men he'd left in charge would now have a choice of their own. He trusted them to make the right one.

Talaos wheeled and turned to one side, then another. Taunting the advancing enemy, always just out of reach. He heard angry shouts of command. Thousands of men pursued him, past the no-man's land of open plain between the enemy camp and the outer defenses.

He laughed a great thundering laugh at the enemy. They came on.

They passed the second line of trenches. Talaos laughed again and gave his horse a pat on the shoulder. Honor galloped, swift as lightning, toward Avrosa. Behind him, and too late, the enemy seemed to realize their danger.

Catapult stones and ballista bolts shot from the walls, towers, and keep.

A maelstrom struck behind him, sending blood-spattered corpses flying in all directions.

The enemy retreated to safety. Safety ahead awaited his thousands of new allies.

3. The Sorting

A great mass of soldiers gathered outside the gate. Thousands. Talaos could see Maxano, Gavro and Hadrastus shouting orders, forming their soldiers into orderly companies. He rode up and hailed them.

Maxano nodded and greeted him in reply, "Hail, Warlord. You asked for a choice, and we've made what many would call a mad one."

Talaos replied, "Does it seem so mad to you, after what you've seen tonight?"

The general shook his head, "No. What you said this morning rang true for me, after weeks of answering to the Prophet's emissaries without any clear reason how we'd come to do so. But, what we saw tonight… I would have thought the Prophet would have found a quieter way to kill you, and one less likely to horrify half the army."

"I think the Prophet wanted to do more than just kill me. He's tried before. There is something within me that he wants utterly destroyed."

"I'm glad he failed. I've never seen a magus of such power as you…" said Maxano. "Or as free of ritual and preparation."

"I am no magus," replied Talaos. "All that I do comes from within."

The general surveyed him in surprised silence.

"I could've told you he was no magus!" shouted Gavro, "Those are inborn gifts, just a lot more of them than we've ever seen in one man!" With that, Gavro rode up and took his arm in the military handshake, then continued, "Sorry for ordering my men to kill you at all costs, back there at the pass. I'm sorry for them too. Stupid waste of lives."

"You fulfilled your oaths as I did mine," replied Talaos, "and any reasonable man would have thought stabbing me a hundred times would do the job."

What Talaos had meant as the humor of that fell flat, as men all around looked at him with uncomfortable expressions.

Hadrastus, nearly seven feet tall, rode up in his gilded bronze armor on a huge, armored horse. The giant removed his helmet and greeted Talaos with a salute. Under his helm, Talaos had expected to see a strong, heavy face like Vulkas. Instead his features were graceful, and his complexion was very pale for a man of Hunyos. Talaos had seen a look like that before.

Cratus's bodyguards, The Twins. Jotun.

He spoke, "General Hadrastus, I am glad you made your choice, and are with us."

The general bowed slightly in his saddle, then replied in a rich, deep voice, "There was no other choice to make. My mother was from Jotun, and told me the old tales. When I saw your eyes, and then your lightning. I knew. The line of the Summer Kings still lives on."

"The Summer Kings?"

"There were once two lines of kings in Jotun, each ruling half the year. The Winter Kings were a line of shamans and sorcerers with gifts of ice and snow. They were long-lived and patient. The Summer Kings were mightier, with powers such as you have, but their lives were usually short. Each felt when his time was upon him, fathered a single son, and then died. Though, they never died by the same means.

"After many centuries, a Winter King at last grew weary of ruling only half the year, and made ready for a war of powers. To avoid such a war, the Summer King left Jotun for the south, never to return. Though, in Jotun they wish for that return even now. It was perhaps five hundred years ago. In the end, the Winter Kings couldn't rule on their own. Their power withered, and now small feuding kings reign in Jotun."

The men nearby, generals, officers, and soldiers, stood quietly. Closer to Avrosa, the questioning and the oaths went on.

At last, Talaos spoke, "In this city of Avrosa there was a hero who, if the stone carving of him is true, was from Jotun. He stood atop a tower and defended the city with his lightning against two fire drakes. I think he was my ancestor, more than two thousand years ago."

"Two thousand years?" answered Hadrastus, "I don't know much of history that far back. In Jotun, they say the Summer Kings were restless, and sometimes wandered during winter. It is also said that they ruled for many centuries, but not since the beginning of time. As they left for the south, so they originally came from it, and for all their wives of Jotun blood, they were not in their origins men of Jotun at all."

Maxano, who'd been listening to all of it, surveyed Talaos with something close to disbelief. Talaos thought it the look of a practical man who has suddenly found fantastical things to be real. And so they were.

As if in reply, Maxano added, "All of this reminds me, what do you think the Hand meant when he said you were both spirit and man?"

"I have been told that by another besides the Hand," answered Talaos, "and though I know it is significant, and believe it to be true, I don't know what it means. What I do know is that we have business to attend to."

The three generals nodded.

"I have asked all men here to swear an oath in the old way to fight the living Prophet before they are allowed into the city. Beyond that, your choices are your own."

The three generals saluted, and he returned it. Then he rode on and went back to the work of organizing their men. As he neared the gate, however, he saw another familiar face. It was Captain Iadro, of Ipesca, and it was a very great surprise to see him.

"Captain Iadro!" shouted Talaos.

"Borras?" replied the hard-faced captain, with stunned surprise in his voice.

Talaos laughed, "Sorry, I'm afraid there was a limit to my honor as a blackguard, and though everything else was true, my name is actually Talaos."

"Talaos? Ha! So you're… this storm dictator or whatever they're talking about?"

"So it seems," smiled Talaos. "What news from Ipesca?"

The captain's hard face turned harder, and dark. "Things got strange. I didn't like it. All of a sudden Rocani was taking orders from the Prophet's people. When he got tired of it, somebody assassinated him, and then we had some bloody fighting. The Prophet's people came out on top, and decided it was time to go to war."

"What made you change your mind?"

"I never liked it, but orders are orders. That business in the camp tonight though was enough for me. A few lads and I decided to make a run for it."

"Welcome then!" said Talaos, gripping the man's arm, "Follow me, and be ready to make an oath to fight the Prophet."

"Oh, I'm ready," said Iadro, blackly.

Even so, Iadro was shocked when Talaos reached the gates, and the assembled glittering generals and officers all saluted Talaos.

"How in all the hells did you pull all this off…" whispered Iadro to him.

"Long story," replied Talaos, "longer than we have time for now."

Iadro nodded, and then boggled again as Talaos greeted the commanders. "Gentlemen, this is Captain Iadro of Ipesca. Have him give the oath. I think he'll have a lot of useful news, and let's see if we can assemble him a company to command."

Nods and salutes followed in reply. Then, Adriko took Iadro aside and started asking questions. Talaos noted with approval that as he had ordered, Aro and the others had stationed a great many more officers to take oaths, and the pace of admission to the city had vastly increased.

However, that brought something else to mind. He addressed the assembled commanders, "Since it is now clear that not all followers of the Prophet willingly left Avrosa, all soldiers in the army are to take the same oath as the newcomers."

The officers looked at him in some surprise.

He addressed them in commanding tones, "We are in a new stage of the war, not its end. There is still a great army outside these gates, ready for battle, and now united in purpose. When we face them, we need to be so as well."

Now there were interested expressions. Kurvan regained his bearlike grin.

Talaos continued, "We will next discuss how to organize the men to take the oath, and in the process, how to organize for a counterattack on the plain." He then turned aside to a messenger nearby, "Find Patrician Akaros and convey my order to summon the Council of Avrosa in the hour before dawn."

The messenger saluted and sped away.

Talaos planned to formulate a similar oath, one vowing rejection of the Living Prophet rather than vowing war, to be required of the civilians of Avrosa. In a single day, both in his army and his city, he intended to carry out a sorting, and cull the remaining enemies from his midst. Then there was more to do.

He thought Ilirios had been optimistic about a third of the enemy army defecting. Yet still he estimated, when all was counted among the original allied army, the Avrosans, and the newcomers, he would have at least twenty-one thousand men under his command against perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five thousand enemy.

If they could break the enemy out on that plain, break the forces that, whether through intent, caution, or ignorance, had stayed in the service of the Prophet, it would open a whole new stage of the war. His war. He had once thought of the sides as him and the Living Prophet, but he now thought of his side as far more. He had accepted Avrosa, and with it Hunyos, as his home, and tens of thousands of men and women here had given him their loyalty.

He had accepted that loyalty, and with it duty. Now he would see this through.

There was much, very much, to do. He began the discussion with his commanders.

~

Liriel smiled up from a blanket at Talaos, as he stood next to the bed in his room at The Waverider. She looked much better than she had the night before. He held her hand and had another hand on her cheek. The physician Demistas, nearby, smiled and left them alone in the room, closing the door behind him. Sunlight filtered in through the slatted, curtained window.

She sighed, and said in a tired voice, "I'll admit that was a reckless thing of me to try."

"Very. That might be my influence at work," he smiled, "but don't give in to it."

"I gave in to you the moment I started to know you."

And so she had, he thought. She'd nearly died, helping him. He kissed her forehead, then sat on edge of the bed and took her in his arms, cradling her safely and protectively.

"Thank you, for what you did, and risked," he said at last.

She sighed again, and lay there for a time until she dozed off. After a little while she woke up, as if remembering something, and spoke.

"Talaos, one of the spirits, a strange one, an old one, said something to me. When they speak to me, it is almost like mind to mind, and usually language doesn't matter, but this one was difficult. If I understood rightly, he said to me that in helping you, he was at last fulfilling an oath made to someone called the Storm Father five thousand years ago."

"The Storm Father?"

"I don't know. They never explain themselves, and you know I'm no historian."

"Still, that gives us something," he replied, though fearing it might have to wait.

She shifted and rested her head on his lap, looking up at him with her black hair all around, and spoke again. "I must have missed some things. What's happening out there?"

"Close to five thousand troops from the enemy army have defected to our side. I made them swear an oath to fight the Living Prophet to be allowed to join us."

"I swear on the honor of my soul to fight the Living Prophet, now and forever," she said.

Her oath, with mention of forever, was sweeping enough to worry him. But it was done.

He tilted her head up, kissed her lips, and went on.

"This morning before dawn, I assembled the commanders from all factions and made them swear the same oath, then sent them out to take oaths from the allied and Avrosan troops. After that I did the same with the Council of Avrosa, and they are going to administer an oath to reject the Prophet to every citizen of the city."

She smiled, "I suspect that will draw out a bit more trouble."

"I hope so," he replied. "Next, I'm reorganizing the army for an attack out on the plain. If everyone does their part, we can be ready by first light tomorrow."

"You've never been one to waste time," she sighed, pressing herself closer to him.

He smiled.

Liriel wrapped her uninjured arm around his leg and looked into his eyes with a new glint in her own. Then she whispered, "I know you'll be busy into the night. Would it be presumptuous of me to say I'd love it if you took me before you left?

Talaos doubtfully eyed her still-pale face and her salved and bandaged arm.

She seemed to understand, and said, "I've never minded pain that much, and you… your touch reminds me to love life. I missed it last night. I missed you. I… I'll beg…"

He put a finger to her lips, and replied, smiling, "No need."

Gently, he removed her sleeping gown, then his clothes. He ran his hands along her bare, slender body, and gazed at her fair face, with its high cheekbones, slender chin, and big dark eyes with their long lashes and arched brows. All was framed in her shadowy hair, and he was reminded of the shadowed spirits of the night before.

Talaos looked into her dark eyes. There was surrender there, and mystery. She had seen strange things with those eyes and the mind behind them.  He ran a hand gently down her side, from her breast to her knee, then up the inside of her thigh. She shivered, parted her legs, and spread her arms aside.