The Lady of Han-Gilen (13 page)

Ilhari pounded on his heels. Elian clung to the saddle by
blind instinct. All her anger, all her impatience, even the sickness of her
fear, lost itself in the thunder of the charge. There remained only
startlement, and a growing exhilaration.

The wind in her face; the splendid sword—when had she drawn
it?—in her hand; the surge of seneldi strength beneath her. Behind her, the
army; before her, always before her, the scarlet fire of the Sunborn.

No target practice, this, no game of war on a table. This
was battle as the singers sang of it. She laughed and bent over the flying
mane.

With a mighty shock, the armies clashed.

Alone, Elian might have run wild. But Ilhari would not leave
the Mad One.

That too was madness, of a sort; for there always was the
press thickest, the battle hottest. Southern-trained Mirain might be, but he
fought as a chieftain of the north, at the forefront of his army, guide and
beacon for all the rest.

He was mad. God-mad; possessed. No arrow touched him. No
blade pierced his flashing guard. His eyes shone; his body shone with light
that waxed as he advanced. Even when a cloud dimmed the sun, he blazed bright
golden.

Elian, tossing in his wake, carrying his spears and the
shield that, like a true madman, he scorned to use, felt the last of her temper
drain away. Awe rose in its place.

She fought it as she fought the enemy who massed about her,
fiercely. This was her brother. She had taken her first steps clinging to his
hand, shaped her first letters under his teaching, learned first how to wield a
sword with his hand over hers on the hilt. He ate and slept like any man,
dreamed both well and ill, and woke blear-eyed, tousled and boylike and faintly
cross-grained. He laughed at soldiers’ jests, wept unashamedly when his singer
lamented the sorrows of old lovers, cast admiring eyes on a good mount or a
fine hound or a handsome woman.

He was human. Living, breathing, warm and solid, human.

He rode in battle like a god.

A blade leaped at her. She parried, riposted, as her weapons
master had taught her. The keen steel plunged through hardened leather into
flesh and grated on bone. With a wrench she freed it.

She never saw the man fall. Her first man. Ilhari slashed
with hooves and teeth at a smaller, broader senel, its rider fantastically
armored, whirling a sword about his head.

Heroics, thought Elian. His bravado left bare the unarmored
space between arm and side. Her sword’s point found it, pierced it.

“’Ware right!”

She wheeled. Bronze sang past her arm. Another’s blade cut
down her attacker; a white grin flashed at her. Vadin in barbaric splendor, his
helm crowned with copper and plumed with gold, his gorget of copper set with
Ianyn amber. His brother was with him, trying to echo his grin, but regarding
Elian with eyes wide, level, and much too dark.

Why, she thought, nettled, the boy had been terrified for
her. Suddenly it all seemed wonderfully ridiculous. She laughed. “My thanks!”
she called out to them both.

Vadin bowed and laughed with her and spun his mare away.
Cuthan nudged his tall stallion to her side as if he meant to stay there. He
refused to see her glare.

For a moment the tide of battle had ebbed. The vanguard
could rest, catch breath, inspect one another for wounds. Mirain’s
standardbearer grounded the staff of the Sun-banner and gentled his restive
mount. The king sat still, eyes running over the field.

It was a good vantage. They had passed the hill’s foot and
begun to mount the slope to the town. All over the wide field the battle raged;
but the northerners had thrust deep, driving Ebros against the walls.

The prince’s banner caught the wind before the gate. He kept
to the custom of southern generals, ruling from behind, where he could see all
that passed and escape danger to himself.

“It goes well,” said Cuthan. “See, their right has fallen.”

“Their left holds,” another of the household pointed out,
“and they’ve got walls to retreat to. We’re not done yet.”

“They’re regrouping.” Cuthan leaned forward, intent. The
enemy was drawing back, gathering together, mustered by trumpets and by the
shouts of captains. Mirain’s forces pursued them hotly; they offered little
resistance.

Mirain loosed an exclamation. His trumpeter glanced at him.
His hand swept out in assent.

His army heard the sudden clear notes.
Retreat
, they sang.
Retreat
and re-form
. The companies wavered.
Retreat!
the trumpet cried.

Slowly, then more swiftly, the army moved to obey. But one large
company was not so minded. Deaf or obstinate, it pressed on, harrying its Ebran
prey. Its captain rode behind it under the banner of Ashan.

Ebros massed now before the walls. As the last company
fought its way forward, the ranks seethed. Horns rang. Cymbals clashed.

Mirain’s voice lashed out at his household.
“Stay!”
But the Mad One was in motion,
springing toward the Ashani forces.

Ilhari followed. Elian urged her on. Mirain’s glance blazed
upon them, his will like a physical blow.

Cuthan’s stallion, close and dogged on their heels,
staggered and bucked to a halt, and would not advance for all of Cuthan’s
spurring and cursing. Ilhari stumbled, shook her head, lengthened and steadied
her stride.

Glittering, deadly, the scythed chariots rolled forth from
the Ebran lines.

The Mad One stretched from a gallop to his full, winged
speed. He closed in upon the Ashani rearguard, veered left.

Ilhari swayed toward the right. The wind whipped into
Elian’s eyes, blinding her; yet she knew where they passed. Round the racing
army, footmen, cavalry, chariots. Chariots foremost, the light war-cars of
nobles, unscythed, all but unarmored, their strength resting wholly in the arms
of the warriors who rode them.

Ilhari hurled herself across their path. Seneldi veered.
Reins and wheels tangled. Men rolled under sharp cloven hooves.

“Back!” cried Elian, high and piercing. “In Avaryan’s name,
back!”

Sun’s fire blazed, dazzling her. A deep voice echoed her
own. The Ashani ground to a halt.

“Back!”
roared
Mirain.

Step by step, then in a rush of hooves and feet and a
clashing of bronze, they obeyed him.

Thunder rumbled behind. Indrion had loosed the scythed
chariots.

Ilhari tensed to bolt. The Mad One spun on his haunches. His
nostrils were wide, blood-red, his neck whitened with foam, yet Mirain seemed
as calm as ever, Enspelled, perhaps, by the whirling scythes.

“No,” he said. Softly though he spoke, Elian heard him
distinctly. “See. They hinder one another; they fear their own fellows.” He
might have been on the training field, instructing her in the arts of war.
“Come now. We have our own work yet to do.”

He did not return directly to his command, but angled right,
riding swiftly yet easily. When Elian glanced over her shoulder, the chariots
were closer.

Yet, terrible though they were, still they were but a few.
And Mirain’s army was drawn up in a wide crescent. At its center, the charge’s
target, massed a phalanx of men on foot, shields linked into a wall. Before
them waited mounted archers, and men in light armor on light swift mares, armed
with long lances.

Ashan’s men found their place in the right wing. Some companies
might have continued their flight once it was begun, but if the Ashani were
fools, they were brave fools. They turned again to fight at need.

As Mirain crossed the face of his army and circled the
phalanx to find his banner, a shout ran with him, deep and jubilant. It had his
name in it, and his titles, and—Elian stiffened a little, startled—her own
usename. But she had done nothing. It was Ilhari who had refused to leave her
sire.

And Galan who brought
half a charging legion to a standstill.
Stern though Mirain’s face was, his
mind-voice held more approval than not. He was almost proud of her.

Almost. There was still the matter of his command and her
flagrant disobedience.

She would pay for it later. But as she returned to the
household gathered behind the phalanx as behind a wall, she felt the warmth of
their greeting. Even Cuthan met her with a wide white grin. Recklessly she
returned it.

The chariots came on. Behind them advanced the Ebran army.
The prince’s banner rode in the center now, edging forward.

Mirain’s mounted archers sprang into a gallop, fanning
across the field. In the spaces between them spurred the lancers. Their spears
swung down in a long glittering wave, leveled, and held.

The air filled with arrows. So slow, they were, rising in
lazy arcs but dropping with blurring speed.

Seneldi screamed. Men howled and fell. The lancers thrust in
among the racing beasts, striking at them, veering away from the scythes.
Arrows sought targets, men and seneldi both, harnessed beasts and unarmed
charioteers.

A senel misstepped, stumbled, fell into the whirling blades.
Its screams shrilled over the din of battle. Elian squeezed her eyes shut.

The screams faded; hooves crashed on metal. Her eyes flew
open. The chariots had collided with the phalanx.

It held. By Avaryan, it held.

Buckled. Swayed. Stiffened. Broke.

Mirain snatched the trumpet from its startled bearer, set it
to his lips, blew a clear imperious call. A roar answered it. With a mighty
clangor of bronze on bronze, the wings of his army closed on the enemy.

oOo

Glory was a fine word in the morning when one was fresh
and unscathed and rode at the Sunborn’s back. But glory lost its luster in hour
after hour of grueling labor, dust and sweat and screaming muscles, blood and
entrails, shrieks of pain, curses and gasps and the ceaseless, numbing,
smithy-clamor of battle.

Elian no longer knew or cared where she went, save only that
the Mad One remained in her sight, black demon spattered with bright blood. For
a time she thought they might be falling back, driven before the chariots and
the fierce defenders of Ebros.

Then, as a wrestler musters all his strength and surges
against his enemy, they thrust forward again. On, on, up the slope of the hill,
under the walls.

No,
she thought.
No.

A deadly rain fell upon them: arrows, stones, sand heated in
cauldrons and poured down from the walls, seeping beneath armor, searing
through flesh into bone.

Mirain’s voice cut across the shrieks of agony. The
infantry, embattled, thrust together. Shields locked again into the moving
fortress of the phalanx.

Relentlessly it advanced. Ebros stood at bay with its back
to the walls.

Heedless of the hail from the battlements, Mirain sent his
stallion plunging against the Ebran line. “Indrion!” he cried, his voice rough
with long shouting.
“Indrion!”

The Prince of Ebros had long since forsaken either custom or
prudence to fight in the first rank of his army. He turned now, hacking his way
through Ashani troops, striving to reach Mirain. The young king, battle-wild,
strained toward him.

Even as they came together, a chariot cut between them. A
man in Ashani armor struck wildly at his old enemy.

Mirain’s sword flashed round. The charioteer flailed at
reins that held no longer. The flat of the king’s blade caught the team across
their rumps, sent them bucking and plunging into the heart of the Ashani
forces.

Freed of the obstacle, they faced one another, king and
prince. Indrion was a tall man, northern-tall but not so dark; his eyes beneath
the plumed helmet were almost golden, and feral as a cat’s. With a single
graceful movement he vaulted from his chariot and bowed in not-quite-mockery.

Mirain laughed and sprang from the Mad One’s back. They
stood a moment, poised, taking one another’s measure. Without a word, they
closed in combat.

Elian’s breath came harsh in her throat. Oh, he was mad,
mad, mad. He all but held the victory: his shieldwall battered at the gate; his
cavalry drove that of Ebros in rout across the field. Yet he faced this giant,
this warrior famous throughout the Hundred Realms, and he laughed, daring death
to snatch away his triumph.

She clapped heels to Ilhari’s sides. The mare set her ears
back and braced her feet. Elian tensed to fling herself from the saddle, but
iron hands held her fast. She glared into Vadin’s eyes.

“No,” he said. “This is the king-fight. It’s not for lesser
folk to meddle in.”

Elian cursed him, and her obstinate mare, and her madman of
a king. Not one of them would yield.

All about them the fight had cooled. Enemies stood side by
side, blades drawn and dripping, eyes upon their lords. Even the folk on the
battlements—women, Elian saw now; boys and old men and a mere handful of
warriors—had ceased their barrage.

Mirain and Indrion fought alone, gold and gold, scarlet
against crimson. Mirain was a warrior in ten thousand, but he had fought
unstinting from the first; god’s son or no, he was made of flesh, and he was
weary. Indrion, newer to the battle, met his skill with skill no less, and with
greater strength.

The king was weakening. His blows were less strong, his
parries less firm. The two swords locked, guard to guard; his own trembled
visibly.

A dead silence held the field. In it, his breathing was
hoarse, labored.

With a mighty heave, Indrion flung him back. He stumbled,
half fell, recovered without grace. All his guards were down. Even his proud
head drooped.

He was beaten. Beaten and waiting to fall. Indrion laughed,
short and sharp, and closed in for the kill.

Steel whirled in a flashing arc. Up, around, down, full upon
the prince’s golden helmet. Indrion reeled, incredulous, and toppled.

Mirain stood over the prone body. He was breathing hard, but
not as hard as he had pretended; his sword was steady in his hand. City and
armies waited for the killing stroke.