Banner of the Damned (78 page)

“But to kill… with magic… even if I knew anything even remotely like that…”

“People,” he said, “are going to die. That’s what happens in battle. I want as few of my people lying on the ground as possible. There is no magic for killing, at least, not available to us. Just as well. To kill with a word, a gesture…” He shook his head. “It would be too easy. What I seek is something that aids our people. A spell that, oh, makes the other side’s horses slip in the mud, say. Fouls their weapons. Or clouds their vision.”

I discovered that my toes were clenched in my shoes, the ring cutting into my flesh. “Have you discussed this with the Herskalt?”

“Of course. Early on, when I commenced learning. He wanted to teach me such spells, but insisted I practice basics first, as such magic is dangerous. I understand that. Like learning how to fight before riding to battle. You don’t carry a sword into battle and expect to achieve anything without training, no matter how sharp that sword is, or how tempered the steel. I have never had the time to master both. So I come to you.”

I said cautiously, “I will have to study. I know of nothing now.”

“I don’t expect anything now. It’s a defensive preparation only. Against the future.”

“I was going to ask your permission to visit the Herskalt while we ride. I could leave a token for myself to transfer back to. And if Lasva-Gunvaer had need of me, you would know where I am for summons.”

His forehead cleared. “Excellent. Do that.”

He turned away, and the two runners standing out of earshot approached him. I walked away, thinking, “defensive preparation?” Then came the obvious:
Danrid Yvanavar
.

I should not have been surprised that the Herskalt was not there.

I had not finished any of my current assignments. I knew he did not live in that small space. Yet I had so many questions my disappointment was sharp enough that I did what I never had before: used the waiting pen and ink, which I had assumed were for translation purposes, and wrote him a note, stating my questions in proper order, using my best scribal hand, for he seemed to warrant no less.

Then I transferred back.

“There you are,” Ivandred said, striding through his people a week afterward.

I stood next to Lasva, who was silent and tense. All around us the Marlovens moved about purposefully, but the signs of nerves were there, the sharp smell of sweat. Later the Herskalt would explain these as the distinctive scent of fight or flee, the extremity of human survival emotions.

Through the milling crowd stepped the Herskalt, his plain robe of gray swinging. It was the first time I had ever seen him outside of Darchelde and among others. He was no taller than Ivandred, built much the same, and he moved with the same martial stride. But the Herskalt exhibited an inner stillness—that is, he made no unnecessary move, and when he did move, it was not abrupt, restless, or even calculated.

“I am here,” he said, smiling. “As you both requested.” To me, “I apologize, young scribe, for my lateness in responding to your request for enlightenment. I was away, on my appointed tasks.”

Ivandred waited for him to finish with scarcely concealed impatience. “We are going to ride soon.”

“I will bide here with your gunvaer,” the Herskalt said with a smile at Lasva. Ivandred gave him a salute expressive of relief then vanished quickly beyond the tents.

The Herskalt touched us each on the elbow. “Come. We shall view the attack from a better vantage.”

Once again, he performed transfer magic that was so easy it was like stepping from one room to the next. In this case, from one room to a hilltop. Lasva looked around, and I said, “Will you teach me that?”

“You have much to learn before you can manage the shift,” he said. And before I could demand a definition of “shift” he said, “But right now you must witness the consequences as grandiosity clashes with royal will.”

We stood on a rocky promontory, overlooking a broad river valley. Olavair’s force was enormous—so large that we could not see the ends of it within the placement of the hills. In comparison, Ivandred’s force seemed small, and the Herskalt commented on it.

“Ivandred did not call for the oath-stipulated levies,” he said.

Lasva gave a short nod, her arms tightening across her front, as a fitful summer breeze toyed with a loose strand from her braid. Ivandred had obviously explained his reasoning to her. What dreadful pillow talk, I thought.

The Herskalt smiled in my direction, as if he could hear my thought. But of course he could not. He held no dyr, and I felt no “presence.” For the first time I wondered if it was possible to listen to minds as events occurred, instead of from the distance of memory.

“Does that not place him at a disadvantage?” I ventured a question.

Lasva was silent, her profile severe.

“It’s problematic,” the Herskalt agreed, as if the forming lines of horse warriors below were painted figures, like in Martande’s great mural, and not living, breathing people and animals. “But if his skill can prevail, it will serve not only as a blow to Olavair’s attempt here to move into Khanivar but also as an even more devastating political blow to Ivandred’s ambitious jarls.”

Lasva spoke at last. “He said he trusted our speed would disconcert Olavair. But they await the First Lancers. There will be no surprise.”

“There is seldom surprise when armies find one another,” the Herskalt answered in an amused tone. “Unless one army has been asleep. However, Olavair has not completed his preparations. He was counting on Ivandred calling the levy, which would have given him at least two months more. And in his haste, he has chosen ground ill-advisedly.”

Olavair’s colors were a bright summer blue glinting with gold—the royal gold. The Marlovens lifted the eagle banner, but that was not where everyone’s attention went as the First Lancers rode up and into formation, lances upright.

“Ah,” the Herskalt said. “Ivandred is going to be a great king.”

And I heard the Senior Scribe Halimas’s voice echo in memory,
I require each of you to tell me what greatness is.

“How do you come to this conclusion now?” Lasva asked, too strained to phrase the question in court form.

There was no evidence in the Herskalt’s demeanor that he expected court form as he said, “Marlovens are bonded by their constant drill. But a great leader binds them to ideals. Watch: the First Lancers’ banner is now unfurling for the first time in this new reign. And—it is not the eagle of the Montredaun-Ans. Nor is Ivandred unfurling it himself. See him alone, there?”

Below, Ivandred sat his horse as if born to ride and pulled on his helm—not a plain one but the helm of a king. He would stand out to his people.

He would be a target.

He turned his head, obviously a signal to Haldren Marlovair, who rode up beside him, lance raised. It was heavier than the lances I’d seen before, black and bulky.

“Ivandred could unfurl the banner as king. But he has given that honor to his commander.”

A wind seemed to move through the riders below as Haldren Marlovair snapped his lance in a movement that took both skill and strength, and the Fox banner unfurled.

“Ivandred has bestowed on the First Lancers their own identity, through his personal symbol, which used to belong to the Montredaun-An heir. Now the Fox banner belongs to the First Lancers. See? It heightens their bond through their loyalty to one another. And to him. Just as they are about to sustain the most brutal part of battle, the first charge.”

Lords of the wind
, Ivandred had said.

“So… if Ivandred’s skills prevail, it could be over at once?” Lasva asked.

Below on both sides, trumpets called, and all the banners streamed and snapped as warriors on both sides braced up or moved into line.

The Herskalt uttered a chuckle. “At once? No. Only surrender can happen at once, and even that does not transpire in a moment. This conflict will probably be fought in steps; it depends not only on how good Olavair’s defense is, but also how far Ivandred is going to push, assuming he wins this encounter.”

The First Lancers’ charge began slow. This was a charge? The horses walked sedately, riders’ lances held upright, pennants flapping.

The inchoate noise changed in volume.

I raised my hand to ward the wink and gleam of sun on helm and steel weapon, and what I had taken to be rain (impossible, for there were no clouds) resolved into a hissing, humming stream of arrows arcing over the heads of the chargers into the solid phalanx of Olavair defenders, standing shield to shield between two hills. The center of that phalanx was packed with warriors fifty deep, maybe more, many with shields held over their heads, throwing the sun’s rays mercilessly back at us as the arrows rained down like hailstones.

Most arrows bounced off harmlessly, but not all. The ranks serried a little and, along the tops of the two hills, warriors for Olavair appeared, heads low, as they drew bow and began to shoot at the slowly approaching First Lancers.

A barely audible trumpet blast, and up came the Lancers’ shields, helms just topping them. The arrows clattered into the shields and slid off the horses’ caparisons, as the animals began to trot, Ivandred at the center.

“The king could command from the second or third line, but you see he leads at Haldren Marlovair’s side. That binds them all the tighter.”

Lasva’s fingers gripped white on her elbows as the trot quickened to a canter, and the gap began to narrow. The warriors bent low behind their shields, the pennants on the upright lances snapping, the horses’ tails streaming. It was a stirring sight.

Then on some signal that I did not perceive, the First Lancers changed direction as if they shared one mind and lengthened their gait into a gallop. They did not run straight into the middle of the shields, but obliquely, toward the left flank, as Haldren lifted something to his lips and a hoarse moan rolled from hill to hill, like the death cry of spectres. The Olavairans wavered.

“Ah,” the Herskalt said. “Good.”

“Good?” Lasva asked, her voice sharp, for the first time ever. “Do you see the way to end this?”

“Ivandred gave them leave to wind the Venn horn. As you hear, it is a dismaying sound. And there is the charge.”

My appreciation of the glory and power of the sight below ended as suddenly as did many lives, with the first smash. Lasva turned her head away as if she’d been struck, but I stared, appalled as the lances lowered at the last moment, the riders’ postures altering to a brace before they plowed into the defenders, driving them into a mass of writhing, shouting, bleeding flesh plus metal and flying hooves and clotted mud.

“… the danger is that the center will come around and swallow them, but see, the skirmishers are attacking the front lines, who now are useless as there is no cavalry attacking them. They are packed too deeply to do much but resist the arrows, and their skirmishers can’t get through to engage with Ivandred’s,” the Herskalt said.

“People are dying,” Lasva said.

“Yes,” the Herskalt agreed. “This is what happens in war.”

“You will pardon my dismay,” Lasva said, her voice trembling as she struggled for courtly modulation. “At this affect of indifference.”

The Herskalt said, “My emotions, whatever they may be, do nothing to alter the suffering below.” He glanced my way. “Until there is no more war, my intent is to find ways to limit the suffering.”

Beyond his shoulder, Lasva’s chin lifted, and her expression became one of intent as she forced herself to look again. So did I, in a vain effort to spot Ivandred. But when the mass shifted, revealing mangled bodies trampled into the churned, blackened mud, my stomach heaved, and I shut my eyes as the terrible noise went on. Close by, the Herskalt’s light, dispassionate voice went on. “… I am certain that Ivandred explained that the Olavairs are not permitted to stay past their third year at the academy. If they go at all. This man refused to send his son, for he wanted to keep him loyal to Olavair, and the academy has a distressing tendency to knit its product into a common bond. He had to send his grandson, but pulled him at age thirteen.” And after another of those horrible surges, revealing more dead: “Marloven strategy has for centuries centered on warfare from horseback. But styles change as the theatre of war changes.”

“Theatre?” Lasva repeated, her voice husky.

“A place of significant events or action. Oh, Khanivar is down. A shame! He was the best of the old generation. That is going to make things more difficult for Ivandred.”

“How can you see?”

“The signal is Khanivar’s crimson-and-white banner:
Jarl down
. He was eighty-two, did you know that? Marloven men are notorious for not admitting to their ages if they can help it. Even a man above eighty wants to be perceived strong enough to lead.”

Lasva’s fingers shook before she clasped them over her upper arms. His dispassionate tone, that of the lecturer, was something new to her, as the Herskalt added: “Ivandred requested I enlighten you. I endeavor to comply.” When she inclined her head, he went on, “In the Academy, they are taught the rudiments of war from horseback. That is what Olavair
took away fifty years ago. He had learned the basics of fighting, but he never learned to command. He flattered himself, and his followers have been careful ever since to agree in every point of his self-praise. Like the late king, he is known for his temper.”