Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (51 page)

I never lose my temper – I know exactly where it is.
‘What in Hel are you doing, Hansi?’ he barked. He flashed a blazing look around the command tent at the Argundian magi with their thick beards and complacent faces. ‘Drunk before a fight!’

‘Nay, Gurv,’ Frikter laughed, ‘we’re not drunk.’

‘Takes more’n a couple of beers to knock us over,’ one of the battle-magi drawled.

‘Just settles the gut,’ another guffawed, slapping his own ample girth. ‘From las’ night!’

‘Shut up and get out,’ Gurvon snapped and the tent fell silent, the Argundians glancing at their commander for guidance. Gurvon realised he’d overstepped and raised a hand. ‘All right, lads. That came out harder than it was meant. But I just want to know why this assault has taken almost two weeks, and it’d better not be because of the drink!’

They all glared at him, not in the least bit placated. ‘It’s ’cause them fuckin’ Noories can’t fight,’ one grumbled.

‘They’re holding you off,’ Gurvon retorted.

‘He means the Harkun,’ Frikter added, hooking a finger through his belt. ‘All right lads, off you go. I need a word with the paymaster.’

The battle-magi left, still sourfaced. Frikter looked at Gurvon crossly. ‘All right, we all know you’re the boss, Gurv, but you don’t come into my command tent and throw your weight around. My lads don’t like Noromen, and they don’t like big-headed boss-men coming in all high and mighty.’

‘Sorry—! I know, you’re right.’

‘I’ll do what I like in my own bloody command tent.’ Frikter belched. ‘And for the record, my boys could down a keg each and still beat any Noorie in a scrap.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Gurvon exhaled impatiently.
Damned chest-beating Argies: they’re all the rukking same
. ‘Listen, Hansi, seriously: what in Hel is going on? Why do the Nesti still exist?’

Frikter pulled a sour face. ‘Gurv, it’s just not so easy as we thought it’d be. These Jhafi, they’re fighting like cornered nyxen
.
You know the nyxen, the Argundian wildcat? You say “Boo” and it’ll run, but you corner one and it’ll come for you, claws and teeth flying. These Jhafi are like that. The whole populace is fighting – shooting bows and throwing spears and rocks and whatever. We’re not fighting an army: we’re fighting a
city
.’

‘Give them a whiff of mage-fire! That’s usually enough.’

‘We have, Gurv, but they just keep hanging on. We must’ve killed five of theirs for every one of ours, but they keep on fighting.’ Frikter shook his head. ‘It’s these fuckin’ nomads you brought in. The Jhafi hate ’em – they hate ’em worse’n the Estellans hate my people. An’ I don’ trust ’em neither, an’ nor should you.

‘I don’t, Hansi, not for a moment. But two legions weren’t going to be enough for this job.’

‘Sure it was, providing we was all on the same side. But I’m jus’ waiting for Heale to fuck me over and he’s coverin’ his pucker-hole jus’ the same, an’ meanwhile these Jhafi and Harkun are going at it tooth and nail.’

Perhaps he’s right
. Without going right into the front line, Gurvon couldn’t judge for himself, but Frikter’s words were ringing true.
Did I really misjudge this so badly?
‘I’m told you almost broke them yesterday.’

‘Sure, we did. But even a pure-blood can’t shield a dozen arrows a second for long, and I swear that’s what we’re facin’. My lads want to see this dump razed, Gurv, same as you. But let the Harkun take the blooding, I say.’

Gurvon scowled. It was well-known that mercenaries could be notoriously tentative when faced with determined opposition. ‘But we’re winning, yes?’

‘Sure.’ Frikter picked up a roughly hewn lump of garlic sausage and gnawed on it. ‘We’ll break ’em today, luck holding. Or tomorrow. They can’t have much left to throw at us, an’ sooner or later even fanatics despair. It’s only a matter of time.’

‘All right, Hansi, I believe you. But we need to finish this. Attack again today, in force. The longer this goes on, the more the other Javonesi lords will be encouraged. And I want you into the citadel first:
we
need to capture the Nesti children, not Heale.’

‘He tried,’ Frikter commented. ‘Sent a skiff right to the top of the tower, but they were beaten away. Some wild tale of snakemen,’ he added with a chuckle. ‘Stupidest excuse I’ve ever heard.’

Snakemen?
Gurvon blinked.
Are the lamiae here?
Memories of his captivity reared up and he shuddered. If Elena had brought that infernal tribe of constructs here, then no wonder this fight was going slower than expected.
Should I warn Hansi . . . ?

He opened his mouth, then the humiliation came roaring back to him. He pictured himself trying to explain gnosis-wielding serpent-men to the stolid Argundian and still managing to keep his respect and couldn’t.

Bugger it, let him find out for himself.

He went with Frikter to the muster, then followed the mercenary commander through the smashed outer walls of Forensa and into the rubble within. Morning mist and smoke fouled the air, so badly that the rankers had rags tied over their mouths and noses. Flights of arrows came and went in flurries, emanating from away to the left, where their Harkun allies were massed. Frikter estimated the nomads had lost six thousand, with many more wounded, but they’d slain three times that number of defenders. Right now they were burning naked Jhafi and Rimoni corpses, looted and stripped, in pits outside the walls. All genders, all ages. It reminded Gurvon of the Noros Revolt.

War always smells the same: like shit and scorched meat.

By now Roland Heale knew he was there; he sent an invitation to dine at midday, but Gurvon politely declined.
I want to be supping from Cera Nesti’s goblet by then
. He made his way towards the front and watched Frikter’s men forming up in tortoise formations. Their warspears were jutting in all directions like porcupine spines.

‘That should be unstoppable,’ he remarked to Frikter.

‘Not over broken terrain, Gurv. That’s the problem. We can’t hold together over the rubble, an’ we can’t cross the canal in formation.’

‘You’re turning into an old woman.’

‘You’ll fuckin’ see,’ Frikter said grimly.

The drums rolled and the legion marched forward. Visibility was poor, but the Jhafi were obviously watching because as the Argundian phalanx shuffle-stepped out of the smashed buildings and approached the canal, arrows began to sleet down. Initially the shafts were ineffectual, for the tortoise formations protected the rankers head-to-toe. The men bellowed Argundian drinking hymns and slammed their spear-butts into the ground in rhythm as they advanced. It was stirring, in its way. Alcohol fumes clogged the air, overlaying the stench of death. The wailing of the Harkun away to the left was an eerie counterpoint.

They were checked at the canal though, where the arrows came thicker. Voices bellowed orders or shrieked in pain and terror, the cacophony punctuated by the recoil of the catapults and the crunch of falling boulders: the unforgettable, horrific sounds of war. Gurvon edged closer, well-shielded behind the tortoise formation as it clambered forward and waded into the canal, now fordable thanks to the weight of the rubble and dead bodies choking it. He began to hope they might cross safely.

But it turned out Frikter hadn’t been exaggerating.

The Jhafi shrieked orders and suddenly the broken buildings on the far side were alive with archers and people hurling rocks, and before he knew what had happened, the sheer weight of fire had shattered the tortoise, the rocks battering the shields aside an instant before a wall of arrows shredded the air, deadly as the Bullhead’s axe. He saw the phalanx stagger and break, and then half of them were dead, their boiled leather armour punctured in a dozen places. The rest died a few seconds later, shrieking at each other even as they tried to surge forward.

‘Fuckin’ told yer,’ Frikter snarled as he broke cover and hurled fire at the archers, incinerating half a dozen before a hail of arrow-fire forced him to dive behind a wall, his shields flashing from pale pink to scarlet as the projectiles ripped them apart. Gurvon, beside him, was truly awed at the ferocity of the defence. The Jhafi cheered as the assault faltered and the Argundians who could slunk back into cover.

It’s like the walls at Norostein. The Pallacians didn’t think a mere militia could fight trained soldiers, but we did. I should have remembered that.

‘Well?’ Frikter snapped. ‘How many more o’ my lads d’you want to see die?’

‘None.’ He slapped Frikter’s massive shoulder. ‘Listen, we can do better than this. I’ve got an idea.’

The second assault began soon after, driving forward behind gnosis-propelled wagons he’d ordered up from the rear. He sent them ploughing over the rubble and straight into the canal, choking it entirely, while impotent arrows flew all around. He followed that up with another wave of wagons, seeking to choke the canal and render it a non-factor. The Jhafi tried to burn them with hurled oil-lamps, but the Argundian magi, roused by his presence, wanted to prove themselves and they doused the flames as swiftly as they began, or hurled them back through the windows into the enemy. They could see the Jhafi clearly now, and the exchange of javelin and arrow fire intensified. It was a war of attrition, of who could kill whom faster.

‘Just about . . .’ Gurvon called, then as a large rock flew and splashed into the deepest hole, he stood and pointed forward. ‘Now!’

With a roar, the Argundian mercenaries charged, this time over ground that was more or less flat and dry.

Gurvon followed, blasting archers on the roofs with mage-bolts, directing his attackers to the weak points, while ten yards to his right, Frikter did the same. The magi fanned out to support the attack, fighting in unison for once, and sheer momentum carried them forward across the water-course and into the rubble. In amongst the houses it was brutal, a kill-or-be-killed mêlée, but the heavily armed and experienced Argundians were finally making headway. They broke into an alley behind the canal houses packed with Jhafi, Gurvon right behind the fighting men, although he dared not intervene for fear of blasting his own men.

But they were winning now, driving forward step by step.

Then the Jhafi line broke.

He’d seen it before, the way the will of even the most desperate, dedicated men could fail when faced with an inexorable advance, especially when they had space to retreat into. The Jhafi began to turn and look for ways out; the panic now clear in their voices and faces. He began to select targets, anyone who was standing his ground, lancing mage-bolts at them, until with a wailing cry the Rimoni and Jhafi defenders began to stampede backwards. The Argundians roared lustily and began to trot forward, their weapons raised. Anyone who tripped and fell in their path were stabbed or hacked apart before they could rise. One woman was dragged aside screaming by two burly rankers who were tearing her robes; a Jhafi man turned to help her but before he could even raise his scimitar, he was gutted by a warspear.

The rout was on.

Then the mist overhead parted at a sudden gust of wind and someone shouted in alarm. Gurvon looked up, and stopped dead.

Sweet Kore . . . But how
—
?

A windship hung over them – no, not just any old windship but an Inquisition warbird: a giant of the skies with ballistae fore and aft, and specially elevated archery decks. Then he looked closer and swore: the warbird was packed to the rigging with bodies, most of them snake-tailed, and gnosis energy twinkled in every hand. Three skiffs plied the air at its sides, darting lower, and bolts flashed from magi riding in the prows, straight into the front ranks of the Argundians, who were gaping upwards in horror. The Yurosian rankers scattered for cover as the windship came lower and giant balls of fire came whooshing towards them. Gurvon cried aloud in fury and shock, darting for shelter as the flames seared around him, engulfing whole cohorts trapped in the packed, narrow alleys.

In the distance, Nesti horns brayed and arrows began to fly again. He looked up in time to see men and women with impossibly bright auras dropping from the side of the ship and floating down on a wave of destruction.

There was a woman standing at the prow, shortsword drawn and grey cloak fluttering.

Elena.

He ducked into the shadows and began to slink away.

*

Elena had seen warbirds in action over a battlefield before. She herself had faced military windships during the Noros Revolt and felt lucky to have survived, fortunate not to have been singled out, nothing more than one face among many on a crowded battlefield that day. But this was her first time on board one during battle. She’d been vaguely aware that the keel of a well-made windcraft not only stored Air-gnosis for flying, but also pure energy, which could be siphoned off by the magi on board. This was the first time she’d benefited. Her sister had flown an Imperial skiff in the First Crusade, and had used its power to level buildings in Hebusalim – just flimsy hovels, Tesla told her later, but nevertheless. In the hands of strong magi, a warbird could be a thing of majestic destruction.

Catapults couldn’t target something that moved so fast. An archer couldn’t penetrate the shielding on something so high up. And from such a vantage, no one could hide. The only things she’d ever seen bring one down were gnosis-powered ballistae or other warbirds – but nothing else.

Now she directed the craft over the battlefield, raining fire and missiles onto the mercenaries below, targeting the mage-knights for special treatment. Some of the Ordo Costruo, those who considered themselves best equipped for fighting, had descended to the field, but she remained aboard. It felt good to be the one holding the whip-hand for a change.

She identified the enemy below: Hans Frikter’s Argundians. They were fighting desperately now, not just against the warbird, but against the returning Jhafi archers, who’d taken heart at the sudden arrival of such powerful allies; the battle had turned into a storm of crossbow bolts and arrows and javelins and spears, as the defenders flooded back. For once the mercenaries were disadvantaged: they might be well-armoured, but they were not archers by nature, and were unable to engage at close quarters. Instead they gave ground, retreating beyond a rubble-choked canal where it looked like most of the fighting had been taking place.