Red (3 page)

“Ready,” she replied. She slipped into the saddle of her seated horse.

“How many?” Thomas asked the runner.

“I don't know. We have fewer than a thousand, but they are in retreat.”

“Who's in charge?”

“Jamous.”

He jerked the lens from his face and looked at the man. “Jamous? Jamous is in retreat?”

“According to the report, yes.”

If such a headstrong fighter as Jamous had fallen back, then the engaging force was stronger than any he'd fought before.

“There is also the warrior named Justin there.”

“Sir?” It was Mikil.

He turned back, saw movement cresting the swell a hundred yards ahead, and took a deep breath. He lifted his hand and held it steady, waiting. Closer. The stench from their flaking skin reached his nostrils. Then their crest, the bronzed serpentine bat.

The Horde army rose into view, five hundred abreast at least, mounted on horses as pale as the desert sands. The warriors rode hooded and cloaked, grasping tall sickles that rose nearly as high as their serpent.

Thomas slowed his breathing. His only task was to turn this army back. Diversion or not, if he failed here, it made no difference what happened at the Southern Forest.

Thomas could hear Mikil breathing steadily through her nose.
I will
beg Elyon for your safety today, Mikil. I will beg Elyon for the safety of us all.
If any should die, let it be that traitor, Justin.

“Now!” He dropped his hand.

His warriors were moving already. From the left, a long row of foot soldiers, silent and low, crept like spiders over the sand.

Two hundred horses bearing riders rolled to their feet. Thomas whirled to the runner. “Word to William and Ciphus! Send a thousand warriors to the Southern Forest. If we are overtaken here, we will meet in the third forest to the north. Go!”

His main force was already ten yards ahead of him, flying for the Horde, and Thomas wouldn't allow them to reach the battle first. Never. He swung into his saddle and kicked the stallion into a gallop. The black leaped over the boulders and raced for the long line of surprised Desert Dwellers, who'd stopped cold.

For a long moment the pounding of hooves was the only sound in the air. The sea of Scab warriors flowed down into the canyon and disappeared behind the cliffs. A hundred thousand sets of eyes peered out from the shadows of their hoods. These were the very ones who despised Elyon and hated his water. Theirs was a nomadic world of shallow, muddy wells and filthy, stinking flesh. They were hardly fit for life, much less the forests. And yet they would likely defile the lakes, ravage the forests, and plant their desert wheat.

These were the people of the colored forest gone amuck. The walking dead. Better buried at the base of a cliff than allowed to roam like an unchecked plague.

These were also warriors. Men only, strong, and not as ignorant as they had once been. But they were slower than the Forest Guard. Their debilitating skin condition reached down into their joints and made dexterity a difficult prospect.

Thomas pounded past his warriors. Now he was in the lead, where he belonged. He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Forty yards.

His sword came free of its scabbard with the loud scraping of metal against metal.

Immediately a roar ascended from the Horde, as if the drawn sword confirmed Thomas's otherwise dubious intentions. A thousand horses snorted and reared in objection to the heavy hands that jerked them back in fear. Those in the front line would surely know that although victory was ultimately ensured today, they would be among the first to die.

The Forest Guard rode hard, jaws clenched, swords still lowered by their legs, easy in their hands.

Thomas veered to the right, transferred his sword to his left hand, and raked it along the breasts of three Scabs before blocking the first sickle that compensated for his sudden change in direction.

The lines of horses collided. His fighters screamed, thrusting and parrying and beheading with a practiced frenzy. A pale horse fell directly in front of Thomas, and he glanced over to see that Mikil had lost her sword in its rider's side.

“Mikil!” With her forearm, she blocked a nasty swipe from a monstrous Scab sword and twisted in her saddle. Thomas ripped at the cords that held his second scabbard and hurled it to her, sword and all. She caught it, whipped the blade out, twirled it once through the air and swung downward at a charging foot soldier.

Thomas deflected a swinging sickle as it sliced for his head, jumped his stallion over the dying horse, and whirled to meet the attacker.

The battle found its rhythm. On every side blades broad and narrow, short and long, swung, parried, blocked, swiped, sliced. Blood and sweat soaked man and beast. The terrible din of battle filled the canyon. Wails and cries and snorts and moans of death rose to the sky.

So did the battle cries of one thousand highly trained warriors facing an endless reservoir of skillful Scabs.

Not three years ago, under the guidance of Qurong, the Horde's cavalry never failed to suffer huge losses. Now, under the direct command of their young general, Martyn, they weren't dying without a fight.

A tall Scab whose hood had slipped off his head snarled and lunged his mount directly into Thomas's path. The horses collided and reared, kicking at the air. With a flip of his wrist, Thomas unleashed his whip and cracked it against the Scab's head. The man screamed and threw an arm up. Thomas thrust his sword at the man's exposed side, felt it sink deep, then wrenched it free just as a foot soldier swung a club at him from behind. He leaned far to his right and slashed backward with his sword. The warrior crumpled, headless.

The battle raged for ten minutes in the Forest Guard's unquestioned favor. But with so many blades swinging through the air, some were bound to find the exposed flesh of Thomas's men or the flanks of their horses.

The Forest Guard began to fall.

Thomas sensed it as much as saw it. Two. Four. Then ten, twenty, forty. More.

Thomas broke form and galloped down the line. The obstruction from fallen horses and men was enough. To his alarm he saw that more of his men had fallen than he'd first thought. He had to get them back!

He snatched up the horn at his belt and blasted the signal for retreat. Immediately his men fled, on horse, on foot, sprinting past him as if they'd been firmly defeated.

Thomas held his horse steady for a moment. The Scabs, hardly used to such wholesale retreat, paused, apparently confused by the sudden turn of events.

As planned.

The number of his men among the dead, however, was not planned. Maybe two hundred!

For the first time that day, Thomas felt the razored finger of panic slice across his chest. He whirled his horse and tore after his fighters.

He cleared the line of boulders in one long bound, slipped from his horse, and dropped to one knee in time to see the first barrage of arrows from the cliff arc silently into the Horde.

Now a new kind of chaos ensued. Horses reared and Scabs screamed and the dead piled high where they fell. The Horde army was temporarily trapped by a dam made of its own warriors.

“Our losses are high,” Mikil said beside him, breathing hard. “Three hundred.”

“Three hundred!” He looked at his second. Her face was red with blood and her eyes shone with an unusual glare of defiance. Fatalism. “We'll need more than bodies and boulders to hold them back,” she said. She spit to the side.

Thomas scanned the cliffs. The archers were still sending arrows down onto the trapped army. As soon as the enemy cleared the bodies and marched fresh horses up, twenty catapults along each cliff would begin to shower the Horde with boulders.

Then it would begin again. Another head-on attack by Thomas, followed by more arrows, followed by more boulders. He quickly did the math. At this rate they might be able to hold off the army for five rounds.

Mikil voiced his thoughts. “Even if we hold them off until nightfall, they'll march over us tomorrow.”

The sky cleared of arrows. Boulders began to fall. Thomas had been working on the counterweight catapults for years without perfecting them. They were still useless on flat ground, but they did heave big rocks far enough over a cliff to make good use of gravity. Two-foot boulders made terrible projectiles.

A dull thump preceded the ground's tremor.

“It won't be enough,” Mikil said. “We'd have to bring the whole cliff down on them.”

“We need to slow the pace!” Thomas said. “Next time on foot only, and draw the battle out by withdrawing quickly. Pass the word. Fight defensively!”

The boulders stopped falling and the Horde cleared more bodies. Thomas led his fighters in another frontal assault twenty minutes later.

This time they played with the enemy, using the Marduk fighting method that Rachelle and Thomas had developed and perfected over the years. It was a refinement of the aerial combat that Tanis had practiced in the colored forest. The Forest Guard knew it well and could play with a dozen Scabs under the right circumstances.

But here in crowded quarters with so many bodies and blades, their mobility was limited. They fought hard for thirty minutes and killed nearly a thousand.

This time they lost half of their force.

At this rate the Horde would be through their lines in an hour. The Desert Dwellers would stop for the night as was their custom, but Mikil was right. Even if the Guard could hold them off that long, Thomas's warriors would be finished in the morning. The Horde would reach his undefended Middle Forest in under one day. Rachelle. The children. Thirty thousand defenseless civilians would be slaughtered.

Thomas searched the cliffs.
Elyon, give me strength.
The chill he'd felt earlier was spreading to his shoulders.

“Bring up the reinforcements!” he snapped. “Gerard, your command. Keep them on that line, by whatever means. Watch the cliff for signals. Coordinate the attacks.” He tossed the lieutenant the ram's horn. “Elyon's strength,” he said, holding up his fist.

Gerard caught the horn. “Elyon's strength. Count on me, sir.”

“I am. You have no idea how much I am.” Thomas turned to Mikil. “With me.” They swung into their horses and pounded down the canyon.

His second followed him without question. He led her up a small hill and then doubled back along the path toward an overlook near the top.

The battlefield stretched out to their right. His archers were raining arrows down on the Scabs again. The dead were piled high. To see the Horde's front lines, an observer might think that the Forest Guard was routing the enemy. But a quick look down the canyon told a different story.

Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of hooded warriors waited in an eerie silence. This was a battle of attrition.

This was a battle that could not be won.

“Any word from the three parties to the north?” Thomas asked.

“No. Let's pray they haven't broken through.”

“They won't.”

Thomas dismounted and studied the cliffs.

Mikil nudged her horse forward, then brought it snorting around.

“Yes, I know you're impatient, Mikil.” There was something about the cliffs that bothered Thomas. “You're wondering if I've gone mad; is that it? My men are dying in a final battle and I've dismounted to watch it all.”

“I'm worried about Jamous. What's your plan?”

“Jamous can take care of himself.”

“Jamous is in retreat! He would never retreat. What's your plan?”

“I don't have a plan.”

“If you don't come up with one soon, you may never plan again,” she said.

“I know, Mikil.” He paced.

Mikil spit again. “We can't just sit here—”

“I'm
not
just sitting here!” Thomas faced her, suddenly furious and knowing he had no right to be. Not at her.

“I am thinking! You should start thinking!” He thrust an arm out toward the Horde now being pounded by boulders again. “Look out there and tell me what could possibly stop such a monstrous army! Who do you think I am? Elyon? Can I clap my hands and make these cliffs crush—”

Thomas stopped.

“What?” Mikil demanded. She glanced around for an enemy, sword in hand.

Thomas spun toward the valley. “What was it you said earlier?”

“What? That you should be with your men?”

“No! The cliffs. You said we'd have to bring the whole cliff down on them.”

“Yes, but we might as well try to bring the sun down on them.”

It was an insane thought.

“What is it?” she demanded again.

“What if there
was
a way to bring the cliff—”

“There isn't
.
”

He ran to the edge. “But
if
! If we could bring down the canyon walls near their rear, we could box them in, bring them down here, and we would trap them for an easy slaughter from above.”

“What do you want to do, heat the whole cliff with a giant fire and empty the contents of the lake on it so that it cracks?”

He ignored her. It was reckless, but then so was doing nothing.

“There's a fault along the cliff there. Do you see it?”

He pointed and she looked.

“So there's a fault. I still don't see how—”

“Of course you don't! But if we
could
, would it work?”

“If you could clap your hands and bring down the cliff on them, then I'd say we have a chance of sending every last one of the Scabs to the black forest where they belong.”

A battle cry filled the canyon. Gerard was leading his newly reinforced ranks into the battle again.

“How long do you think we can hold them?” Thomas demanded.

“Another hour. Maybe two.”

Thomas paced and muttered under his breath. “That may not be enough!”

“Sir, please. You have to tell me what's going on. There's a reason I'm your second in command. If you can't, I am needed back on the battlefield.”