The Stricken Field (39 page)

The legions had disappeared, houses and trees had vanished, and there was nothing left to burn. Air shimmered above a fiery welter of dragons where the Imperial Army had stood. In the farther distance, the little town was a roaring inferno, already almost consumed. Whoever had sent these monsters was on the goblins' side, and the goblins were screaming themselves hoarse with excitement as they watched.

There was nothing left. Now what?

Now withdrawal. A white-hot dragon as big as a temple thundered over the ground with wings beating up clouds of flying ash. It launched itself into the air, heading straight for the goblins. The cheering stopped. Others followed it. Shivers of terror ran through the watchers, but they had no time to run before it became obvious that there would be no attack. The lead monster continued its painful climb, fighting its way up the sky. It passed over the goblins too high for a bow shot, had anyone been crazy enough to try, but even at that height, blasts of scorching air beat down from its wings. One after another, the rest of the blaze followed it. The charred and empty land they left glowed faintly red.

This was wrong! Something Kadie could recall reading long ago had said that once dragons had tasted metal they would ravage the countryside for days afterward. Perhaps the book had been mistaken, because all dragon lore must be very old, or perhaps someone held these particular worms under very tight control.

Still gaining height, the monsters streamed southward. The heat of their passing was like a potter's kiln or the face of the sun. Far below them, sweating goblins were cheering again. Already the lead monsters were almost lost to sight in the far, high distance.

Then the cheering faltered. The smaller dragons were obviously more nimble in the air, and one last youngster broke out of formation. As if sensing the banquet of swords and arrowheads waiting below, it came spiraling downwarily, like a puppy approaching a strange cat. Goblins in its path screamed and fled. It was little bigger than a sheep, its scales glowing dull maroon and dirty orange, the colors of a smith's forge, but even one baby dragon could scatter an army. It sank below treetop height, wings thundering as it tried to hover, snaky neck twisting around, jeweled eyes gleaming this way and that. It seemed puzzled, or perhaps it had arrived too late for the feast and been cheated of its share and was still hungry. The meadow below caught fire, smoke streamed out in the blast. Then the monster changed its mind, or heard a call. It flapped harder, gained height again, and streaked off in pursuit of its fiery relations. Cheering broke out once more.

The ruins of the town still burned, but of the Imperial Army nothing remained at all on the smoking black wasteland where the blaze had ravaged.

Death Bird began making a speech, screaming gutturally to his horde and waving his arms. The cheering kept drowning him out. The chiefs were embracing one another, almost dancing, making the platform rock and creak alarmingly. Kadie sat down and straddled the log she had been standing on. She felt sick. She was still alive. Thousands of men had been charred to nothing before her eyes and she was still alive.

Blood Beak knelt to speak to her, teeth showing in a ferocious mad grin. "Can hear?" he said. "Are going home! Sorcery on our side! Wardens help! Going back to taiga!" "It's a long way to the taiga yet."

He leered. "Marry you tonight! Waited too long."

She turned away. He grabbed her chin and twisted her head around, thrusting his head so close to hers that she could see every black dot in his tattoos and the wispy hairs around his mouth and even the shiny drops of sweat on his forehead. "Will have you tonight!" he said furiously. "No magic sword tonight! Will tame Krasnegar girl tonight!" "No, you won't."

His glee made his lips curl back, revealing his tusks. "Good, good! Enjoy struggle!"

"You're leaving," Kadie said. She felt quite calm, almost sad. It was all over. "You're leaving. You have to leave. There's no food here. You must find a way across that river, to somewhere you can loot, right? And I can't come. I have no horse now."

His face darkened, confirming what she had suspected about poor Allena. The horde would start to move as soon as the king had finished his speech. She could not follow. "Run!" Blood Beak said menacingly.

"Don't be ridiculous." "Will have men carry you."

Breaking free of his grip, she tossed her head angrily. "That's pretty stupid, too, isn't it? What will you offer them? Do you plan to let them join in the wedding celebration?"

He flushed olive, furious. Obviously he could see no solution, either. "Then do it now and leave you!"

Which is what she had been expecting him to say. The goblins were saved, but Kadie was not. Fear was a sick throbbing in her stomach.

Death Bird had finished his oration. The platform rocked and bounced as the chiefs scrambled down to the ground. Blood Beak jumped up to intercept his father, doubtless planning to explain the Kadie problem.

He never even began. Something hid the sun. Men screamed. She looked up in time to see an enormous blackness in the air above her. She recoiled in amazement and lost her grip and ...

"It's the legions!" Rap sobbed. "He's set them on the legions! Oh, Gods, Gods!"

Pain and terror flooded the ambience in lurid color, burning nerves, crushing senses. A ship full of sorcerers, Dreadnaught rang like a bell. Anthropophagi had become screaming madmen. Trolls howled like dogs.

"The legions?" Jalon grabbed the wheel Rap had released. "Why would he do that?"

But Rap could spare no thought for the mundane minstrel. He stumbled to his knees with the effort of wrestling, reasoning, shouting in the ambience, struggling to control his pitiful little army before it rushed into futile rescue. If just one sorcerer broke away and was captured in consequence, then all would be betrayed. Waves of maddening pain poured out from Bandor Field. Five legions! Five times five thousand deaths.

Why? Just to demonstrate the Covin's power for the benefit of the sorcerers of Pandemia?

"You all right, Rap?" Jalon asked, kneeling down beside him and laying a cool hand on his sweaty brow. Rap unrolled. He was conscious of a bitten tongue, and the hard planks of the deck under his back, still cold from the night. He stared up at the concerned jotunn face above him, the blue eyes an exact match for the early-morning sky behind, so that a fanciful man might assume the minstrel had two holes through his head and the sky was smiling through ...

"Yes," he mumbled. "Yes, I'm all right."

The battle was over, the suffering had ended. No one on Dreadnaught had broken ranks.

"It's done?" the minstrel asked, helping him sit up. "It's done. The legions are dead. The worms are heading home." Every muscle shivered independently.

Five times five thousand men ... for what? But at least the Covin had held the blaze together and prevented widespread disaster. The power required for that was appalling-which was why it had been done, of course.

SORCERERS, YOU HAVE SEEN! NOW WATCH AGAIN THAT HIS STRENGTH BE MADE KNOWN TO YOU! "Rap? Rap, now what's happening? Tell me!"

Rap had reached his knees. He sank back now on his heels. No more! Please no more!

Thrugg answered for him, in a roar that filled the ship from stern to bowsprit. "The goblins! He's going to kill the goblins!"

Rap thought then of Death Bird, who had been Little Chicken-a very old friend and yet never quite a friend. They had adventured together, almost died together, almost killed each other . . . Long ago.

However Death Bird had led his horde to Bandor, he had made history and probably very bloody history. He was only a savage, born of savages, reared by savages, and yet he had hammered and quenched and forged until he wrought the independent savage bands of the taiga into a nation and a fighting force capable of humiliating the Impire. Had any invader ever done as much?

The Gods had thrust greatness upon him.

And Rap had helped, obedient to the Gods' will for once. Was the destiny ended now, the adventure over? Remembering their last meeting, at the Timber Meet, he saw how like old men they had become, trading stories of their respective children. Death Bird had bragged about a son who had slain a bear. Was the boy there at Bandor dying with his father, or had he remained behind in the taiga to continue the dynasty? Rap would never know.

Good-bye, Death Bird Tell the Gods that what They find in your soul is what They decreed Themselves.

Kadie was lying in the grass, hurting. She vaguely remembered working out that she had fallen, but not the actual fall nor when exactly she'd worked it out, either. Why did everything have to be so fuzzy? Had she been there a long time, or only a few seconds?

There was a terrible amount of noise everywhere: crashing sounds, men screaming, and alien shrieks that certainly came from nothing human. There was something wrong with her eyes, so she didn't have to believe that the branches overhead were really, truly rocking against the sky like that. She wanted it all to stop so she could rest.

Then someone died quite close. At least it sounded like someone dying-a terrible scream, then a gurgling screech, and a thump. More thumps. Yes, that definitely sounded like someone dying.

She lifted her head and saw two black birds as big as horses. They had their beaks in two men, and were battering them against two trees. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. Now there was only one bird and one dead man. That was better ...

She was on her feet, reeling in a dark haze of giddiness. Another man was slashing with a sword at another bird. It stood higher than he did, and it was jabbing with its beak, snapping at him, driving him backward. She leaned against a trunk and tried to keep her legs from folding up under her like razors. She was in the middle of a battle. There were goblins everywhere and giant black birds everywhere, and half the time she was seeing two of everything.

She watched a burly goblin swing his sword doublehanded against a bird's neck. It bounced off. The bird closed its beak on his head, lifted him bodily, and shook him. Then it stopped shaking, but his body continued to swing as if his neck was now made of rope. The bird dropped him and planted a foot on him. Then it pulled his head off.

Kadie staggered under the platform and found another trunk to lean on. There were a dozen men sheltering under there already, and birds were trying to come in at them on the far side.

They were ravens, enormous ravens.

She laughed a little. Raven Totem. Death Bird. Blood Beak. Giant ravens! Obviously the wardens were playing jokes, and she was sure she would see how funny it was if her head would just stay still a minute. The goblins had eaten her horse. Allena the Fare?

Dragons belonged to the warlock of the south, Mamma had said, and the legions belonged to the warlock of the east. No one must use sorcery against the legions, but today South had sent his dragons against them, so now East had sent these birds against the goblins, tit for tat. Quite obvious. Warlock Raspnex had said that the wardens had been deposed, but he must have made a mistake.

All around her ravens were feeding, or chasing men through the trees, smashing branches and even trunks as if trees were weeds. She peered up, between the logs of the platform. The sky was dark with the monsters, still coming from somewhere. Over the low wall that enclosed the orchard, she could see them settling like starlings on the main host of goblins. Thousands and thousands of them--jetblack feathers, black beaks, black legs, bright golden eyes glittering. Their shrieks were the cries of ravens magnified a hundredfold. Arrows bounced off them, swords bounced off them.

There were bodies on the platform, one still dribbling blood.

"Kadie?!" A hand grabbed her.

She looked around, and saw two Blood Beaks, both grass-green with terror. She smiled at them vaguely. Oo, what a lot of noise there was! How was she ever going to get to sleep with all this noise?

Behind the Blood Beaks the ravens were winning the local skirmish, grabbing men and smashing them against trees. When they were dead, the birds fed on the corpses. There were only six or seven defenders left under the canopy, and all that was keeping them from being overrun was the congestion of feeding birds. The others could not pass to get at their prey.

The goblin king was fighting like a human whirlwind, holding off two monsters. But the unequal struggle could not last forever. Even as she watched, a beak as big as two swords jabbed into Death Bird's chest. The points came out through his back in a wash of blood. The raven backed away, carrying him. He pounded fists on its head for a moment, then went limp. Bye-bye, Death Bird ...

"Kadie, I'm sorry!" Blood Beak was yelling in her ear over the noise. "I didn't mean what I said!"

"Yes, you did," she said politely. There was only one of him, which is what she expected, really. She wished her head would stop aching. This was all very interesting and if she could see properly it would be even more interesting. She wondered if the birds would attack only goblins. How did they feel about jotunn-imp-faun mixtures? Perhaps she should take her clothes off so they could see she was pinky-brown, not green. Could birds tell colors?

She was going to find out very shortly. Only three men were left under the platform, and Blood Beak, and her. The noise was growing less, she decided, more bird shrieks but a lot less man-screams. The goblin horde was being reduced to carrion. Soon there wouldn't be any goblins. Two whole armies wiped out without even having a fight--even if she had survived to tell this tale, no one would ever have believed her.

Then Blood Beak yelled, and she turned. Two ravens were coming through the trees. From the way the closer one was looking at her with its beady gold eyes, it was obviously interested in more than goblins. She drew her rapier.

"I'll save you, Kadie!" Blood Beak waved his sword. "I doubt that very much." Again she spoke so quietly that he would not hear. Her head was going round too fast for shouting.

The two monsters rushed in side by side. Blood Beak swung his sword at the one on his side, and the sheer power of his blow seemed to knock the great head back. Eyeing her own opponent blearily, Kadie decided she would dance forward lightly and lunge at the beak itself, hoping to hit the tongue. Tongues should be vulnerable, shouldn't they?