The Storm's Own Son (Book 3) (9 page)

Behind them, the enemy heavy cavalry began to slow. They no longer had room to maneuver properly, and Talaos thought their commander was likely trying to turn them and get out before being pinned on three sides.

Talaos looked back over his shoulder and saw that Adriko had decided to make the enemy's task more difficult. Light horsemen with bows detached from Adriko’s main force, and wheeled to fire into the rear of the enemy heavy cavalry. Talaos's own task now was to ride through the gap on the left and press north to disrupt the end of the invading army's line.

"All speed! To the left!" he shouted.

The friendly cavalry ahead wore closed-faced helms, but Talaos imagined their faces bore surprised expressions. Still, they held their ranks in good order. Talaos and his men raced through the gap as it closed, and out to the coastal plains beyond. The trap closed behind them, with the enemy heavy cavalry caught between their allied counterparts, thousands of advancing heavy infantry, Tescani's palisade of stakes, and Adriko's raining arrows.

Talaos and his men wheeled out, northeast around the palisade. Ahead, enemy spearmen locked in combat with soldiers of Megasi. Both sides looked weary and depleted. The enemy broke and fled before his force. Next was a gap in the enemy line. At the same point inside the palisade, the Megasi troops merged into those of Tescani. Corpses piled in heaps all around, and the line of the stakes was damaged and broken. It was the weakest point in the entire defending perimeter. The enemy clearly saw it, too.

The enemy's body of heavy irregular foot, marching in from the coast, now charged toward the broken and corpse-piled stretch of palisade. They were three hundred heavily armored men with mattocks, two-handed swords, and long axes. Among them were men with weapons flickering with green light.

Talaos knew what had to be done. If Tescani and Drevan could hold just a while longer, Aro's thousands would join Adriko's, and they would drive the enemy into the sea. If they could hold.

"Madmen and Wolves!" he shouted, mastering inner exhaustion. "At those men!"

They roared and galloped toward the enemy.

The charging shock troops saw them coming and turned, still sprinting, to face them. The enemy advanced on foot, but they were three hundreds against one, and wielded long, heavy weapons of great use against horsemen.

Talaos knew that for all they'd done on horseback today, his Madmen and Wolves were not mainly cavalry fighters. The horses had been running since the fight at the Prophet's camp, and were near exhaustion. He made a quick decision. Their horses had brought them, but they would do the fighting.

"Men! Slow your horses, together now, dismount, and charge!"

Talaos reined Honor, his men followed likewise, and then all leapt from their horses. Without pausing, they raced at the oncoming enemy. Talaos, swiftest of all, drew his twin blades. Faint flickers of lightning traced along them, drawing on depleted power. Pain coursed through his weary, wounded, seared body, but he pushed it aside and ran on.

They were upon the enemy. He leapt, whirled with spinning blades and cut the heavy iron head from a maul with his long blade, kicked its wielder aside, and landed to run his short blade under the chin of the man's helm. As he spun to the next foe, he saw the onrushing wave of his own men. Their eyes sparked with lightning, and power crackled on their weapons.

Talaos fought the shadowed weariness within himself even as he fought his foes. He lunged, turned, and cut down another. Behind him, Vulkas swept his mattock to send a massive, heavily armored enemy flying backwards. Another near giant brought a two handed sword down to cleave Vulkas's skull. The latter spun with almost superhuman speed to bring the heavy head of his mattock up in defense, and the great sword shattered against it. The foe ducked with a gauntleted fist under Vulkas's guard, but was interrupted as Larogwan cleaved his skull with a blue-white sparking axe. Talaos leapt again, spun sideways past a foe's raised axe, kicked another's face in mid air, and landed as his sweeping long blade beheaded a third.

Behind, Firio now moved faster than could clearly be seen, and drove his lightning daggers home in one enemy after another with blasts of light and smoke. The other Madmen and Wolves roared to the attack, but against them now came men with weapons and armor that flickered faintly green. A mighty battle began, with men on both sides swinging deadly blows, dodging, kicking, and hurling weapons.

With lightning in their eyes, the fury of the Madmen and the Wolves raged against their massed foes. Talaos leapt and spun and slew as weapons struck him on all sides. For all the men who'd surrendered in the great battle behind, here quarter was neither asked nor given. Grim men fought to the death on a blood strewn field, while great armies advanced around them.

At last, it was done. Talaos, his Madmen, and his Wolves stood amid three hundred fallen foes, guarding the gap in the line of their friends. Talaos looked around him. He'd lost thirty more Wolves thirty more brothers at arms. But, they'd done it.

Aro's line of thousands now reached them. The enemy began to withdraw from Tescani's carnage-strewn palisade and back toward the sea. Farther off, to his left, he could hear the thunder of cavalry as Adriko moved to intercept them. In the other direction, inland and to the south, he could hear many thousands of marching feet. That would be his main army, wheeling to face the remaining enemy.

There would be more fighting, but his generals knew their business. He felt his weariness rise again, inner blackness growing past his efforts to control it. He had expended tremendous amounts of his power today, and given much of it, likely forever, to loyal men now both living and dead. He'd lived through withering death that should have killed him, many times over.

Yet there was still more to do.

Even as the enemy line rolled up, at the far point of Tescani's position, hard fighting continued. He motioned to the Madmen and Wolves, and they passed through the very gap in the palisade they'd just defended.

Around them, many soldiers of Megasi lay dead or wounded. Others stood, leaning wearily on their spears or propped against their large round shields. He saw a decurion he recognized and hailed the man. The latter saluted, and Talaos returned it.

"Decurion," he said, "do you know where Drevan and Tescani are?"

The man looked downcast. "I'm sorry, Warlord, Drevan is dead. When last I'd heard, Tescani was fighting with the front line of his men, off that way…"

The decurion pointed in a direction further north.

Talaos thought black thoughts, gave the man a grim nod, and went on with his troops.

He and his weary men threaded their way through groups of exhausted , wounded soldiers. Ahead, at the north palisade, sounds of fighting still rang. He sped up. Tescani's remaining healthy men were massed there with long pikes, stabbing over the tattered, corpse-strewn barricade of stakes as arrows and javelins landed among them.

But even as Talaos raced wearily to help, the enemy began to withdraw, first in good order, then in haste. He heard the thunder of hooves, and Adriko’s thousands of cavalry came from the west, sweeping along the coastal plain between Tescani's palisade and the shore.

From the far south of the battlefield to the far north, he and Adriko had fought, and however little it yet felt like it, the day was won. Victory. Talaos thought wearily, victory at a price as yet unknown.

Now though… Where was Tescani?

Blackness grew within. Exhausted. Spent.

He saw one of Tescani's grim captains, hailed the man, and they exchanged salutes.

"Captain, where is Warlord Tescani?"

The captain was bloodied and bandaged. His armor dented and his cloak rent and soaked with gore. He looked bleakly at Talaos, and motioned to follow.

Men all around stopped, nodded grimly to Talaos and saluted. He returned them and stumbled onward. Further on, he saw great piles of dead on either side of a gore-spattered stretch of palisade spikes. There on the bloody ground, back propped up against enemy corpses as if they were cushions, sat Tescani. Officers and men stood all around him, silent and bleak.

Tescani tilted his scarred, square-jawed face, just slightly, and his hard eyes appraised Talaos. He gave a weary nod. His heavy armor was rent and caked with dried blood. Arrows had found gaps in even that mighty armor, and they were buried deep. Talaos walked to the dying warlord on unsteady feet, and dropped to one knee in the gore-soaked mud beside him.

"We held…" said Tescani with grim, cold pride, but his voice wheezed. He coughed, and blood came from his mouth.

Talaos nodded and gripped Tescani’s forearm, and the latter returned it in the military handshake.

"You held, and the day is won," replied Talaos.

Tescani mastered his coughs, and spoke again, voice hoarse, "I said you were the main chance. I'll put in a good word for you… in the hells…"

No, thought Talaos.

He had power left. Some. He used it. With his hand still on Tescani's arm, he poured forth his power as he had for others this day.

Tescani narrowed his eyes as if unsure what was happening, then they flashed with faint light. The warlord looked startled, almost disbelieving. Then he took on an expression of purpose. He wrenched his arm free with sudden energy and stared in grim hatred at the arrows in his body. To the visible shock of all around him, he ripped them out one by one. He winced with agony, then calmed as the wounds began to heal. "What in the hells…" he said, voice low. For a moment, he brightened, closer to human happiness than Talaos had ever seen him. Then he took a look at Talaos, and grew grim again.

Talaos felt the drain of everything he'd done. The world spun in shadows around him. Nonetheless, he rose to his feet. Then his legs gave way. Tescani leapt to his feet to catch him. Others joined to help, and a dozen strong arms supported their leader. He steadied, rose, and appraised the scene around him. No enemy in sight remained under arms and in battle. All had surrendered, fallen, or were in headlong retreat.

Victory indeed.

“We’ve won, men!” he shouted, his own voice now hoarse.

Cheers and salutes answered in reply from hundreds of soldiers. However, those who watched him for any length of time looked worried.

"Men, find me somewhere to sit. I have more work to do," said Talaos.

Soldiers stared in brief uncertainty, but then moved into action.

They had only grim things to work with, and so they worked with them. With surprising speed, his men built him a kind of crude, massive throne of the corpses of fallen enemies, framed and braced by stakes and spears, with round shields for a seat and a back atop the bodies.

Talaos surveyed the strange throne of fallen foes, and thought it good.

He took his seat on the shields, and rested his swords across his lap. The men all around looked as if they still watched a dying commander, but it was no longer Tescani. Some placed enemy weapons and banners at his feet.

He surveyed himself, and thought it was not good. He had far more, and more serious, wounds than he'd remembered getting, a testament to how little notice he took of them anymore. His flesh still showed visible burns and withering from the blast he'd taken, and much that might have healed him had gone out to others instead. So be it, he thought.

Talaos raised his right hand, and all the men around gave him their attention. "Bring our gravely wounded here, all that cannot walk on their own. I command it."

Men boggled, but saluted, shouted their obedience and went swiftly into action.

The first was brought before him, a hard-faced mercenary serving with Tescani. The man had many cuts, and his entire right side was shredded by great stab wounds. He was pale with loss of blood. Talaos took his arm and poured forth a bit of power. Not like what he'd given the Madmen and Wolves, for he no longer had it on that scale, but with luck enough to help this man live.

The soldier's breathing became stronger, and his eyes focused. There was only the faintest spark in them, but it was the spark of life. He looked surprised to see his supreme commander there, and made to salute, but had not the strength. Talaos saluted him instead. The soldier gave a grim smile as he was carried onward.

The next wounded man was a soldier of Megasi. He was hardly more than a boy, and his youthful face seemed almost peaceful, but his right leg was gone above the knee. Someone had tied and bandaged the wound, but he'd lost vast amounts of blood.  Talaos took his arm and gave him a spark. The boy opened his eyes confusedly, but with life.

Then came the next, and the next. It went on and on, for there were many wounded.

With each life bolstered, he felt his own fade. The blackness was strong now, covering his inner world in shadows. It grew, looming as it had at the pass. He fought it, pushed it back and away. He clawed within for life and power.

Some of his soldiers watched what was happening wide-eyed, others lowered their eyes to the ground. The Wolves and Tescani's tough veterans looked blank and grim, staring as if at things far away. Only his Madmen, who knew him best, and who'd been with him before when he ought to have died, seemed more hopeful. Even so, they watched him cautiously.

More gravely wounded men, and more. They'd done well in this battle, but still he knew there must be many near death yet not yet at it. He ordered they be brought to him from across the battlefield. Others, including most of his commanders, arrived and watched. Talaos worked on. More wounded men given life, and more lost within. At last, he could no longer raise his own hand. He slumped in his throne. His eyes closed as the darkness won.