When Dragons Rage

27

Though he sat astride his horse alone, Adrogans could feel the Mistress of Pain clinging to him. She hugged his back to her chest, her claws raking down his chest. Her jagged teeth gnawed at his shoulder and neck. Though her distraction was mighty, Adrogans’ concentration was greater. As she used him, he used her, and he got the better of the bargain.

Around him swirled an early-morning blizzard, and the flakes fell thick and fast. Fading into the distance on either side of the Svar River’s western shore was the forest through which his troops had moved. Below his position, the land sloped down for five hundred yards to the river’s northern ford. The water appeared as a dim black snake, and beyond it lay vague grey-and-white mounds that had once been a small stronghold guarding this important crossing.

Though he could not actually see any movement down there, the yrun allowed him to feel the presence of the enemy. Adrogans could not determine how many there were, for he was too young in his power to do so. All he could tell was that there were a lot of them and that both hunger and cold assailed them.

He glanced left at Phfas. The diminutive Zhusk sat the back of a shaggy brown mountain pony. “Your impressions, Uncle?”

Phfas sniffed at the air. “They will not smell worse dead. Gibberkin, vylaens, hoargoun, and something else.”

“Something else?” Adrogans focused his perception and Pain lanced a hand deep into his side. He blinked, then refocused, using the clarity that pain gave him. He nodded. There, deep in the knot of bodies that were hungry and shivering, there were others.

“I have them, but do not know them.”

The little shaman tightened his grip on the thin woolen blanket he wore over his shoulders. The dark blue and green plaid seemed out of place, though the Guarnin family who gave it to him had been proud he’d carried it with him. Phfas hunched forward in his saddle, as if he were going to whisper to his mount, then slowly shook his head.

“New. A surprise.”

“In one sense, yes.” Adrogans had taken pains to deploy his light units against the raiders that the Aurolani were sending into the highlands. He would have been content, as his troops trained, to do nothing more than deal with the raiders. When Nefrai-kesh showed up in Meredo, however, his plans changed. He learned instantly of the sullanciri’s presence in the Oriosan capital via arcanslata and decided to strike fast—before Chytrine’s general could return to direct his soldiers.

Adrogans raised his right hand and felt his mistress slip her fingers through his to rake agony down into his armpit. When he let his arm fall again, a mounted trumpeter on his right sounded a call. The Jeranese Horse Guards, resplendent in their brown tabards over ringmail, emerged from the forest and began the descent to the river valley. Off to his right the Jeranese Light Horse came down the hills in a column two abreast and on the left the elite Valician White Mane cavalry rode into position. The three cavalry units gave him three hundred mounted troopers and a force that would sweep swiftly over the ford.

Their ride had not been easy because Guraskya lay nearly sixty miles from the ford. They moved out quickly and changed mounts several times on the journey. The cavalry had not enjoyed pushing their horses so hard in the winter, but they were less inclined to squander an opportunity to strike at the enemy.

While Adrogans could not get an accurate count of the enemy via the yrun’s senses, he could tell that the garrison was not that big. He estimated that his forces had a two-to-one advantage, which would have boded well were he not fighting across a river in the midst of a blizzard and attacking a fortified position.

As expected, the trumpeter’s call had done more than summon up the Southlands troops. Dark forms began to stir in the enemy camp. Adrogans studied them, matching what his eyes showed him with what he sensed through pain. Everything seemed to fit save for one rather large anomaly.

“That is a hoargoun down there, yes?”

Phfas nodded solemnly.

The frost giant plodded forward through the snow, dragging a club made from the bole of a tree behind it. Though it moved ponderously slowly, it waded into the river. Water boiled around its broad feet, rising to cover its ankles when Adrogans knew the frigid water would come up to his own knees.

Adrogans concentrated, then shook his head. “I can’t feel it, and that water has got to be cold. It must hurt.”

The Zhusk shaman again sniffed the air. “That one is beyond hurt.”

“Reanimated?”

“Not alive.”

“That would mean some fairly powerful magicks at play.”

“You’re surprised.”

The Jeranese general shook his head. With the frost giant contesting the ford, getting a massed formation past would be tough. That club would crush warriors and scatter horses. Adrogans knew the creature would go down eventually; alive or undead it could be chopped to bits. His concern was for how much damage it would do before it was brought down.

Down below, the cavalry units drew themselves up just two hundred yards from the river’s far shore, which put them outside the effective range of arrows and draconettes. It would put them in jeopardy from a dragonel shot or even the thunderballs he’d heard about from Fortress Draconis. It was a danger he had to accept, because without massing his troops for a charge, he wouldn’t get past the ford. And while that did make them more vulnerable to ranged weapons, for them to spread out would have been a disaster.

Adrogans glanced to his right. “Signal slow advance.”

The trumpeter blared out another call and the heavy cavalry began a slow advance toward the ford. The general urged his horse forward. Phfas followed on his left and the signalman on his right. They pulled in behind the Horse Guards and moved forward.

Adrogans drew his saber. “For queen and country!”

The hundred Horse Guards echoed his call, underscored with the skirl of steel being unsheathed. Horses stamped, blowing out jets of steam. Tack jingled, and the mail of restless warriors rustled. Muscles quivered on man and beast alike, and a hundred and a half yards ahead of them, the hoargoun heaved its club into the air and began spinning it slowly.

Adrogans nodded to the signalman. “Blow charge.”

The notes for charge blasted out and the Horse Guards surged forward. Hooves devoured the ground. Snow sprayed up, dappling chests and legs, hiding limbs as if the horses were wading through a sea of fog. Men screamed and, awaiting them, the gibberers hooted. Snowflakes stung Adrogans’ cheeks as he spurred his horse forward.

Off to his left a new cry was voiced. Springing up from beneath blankets and cloaks of white, the Loquelven Blackfeathers revealed their presence. The light infantry had already been ranging far to the northeast of Guraskya, so were able to make it to the Svar River ford before the cavalry. Under cover of the blizzard they had advanced to the edge of the river and waited there for the trumpet calls.

Even over the pounding of hooves, Adrogans could hear that deep groan of silverwood longbows being drawn. Black arrows a yard long and as thick as a finger sped through the air. On a snowy hill a gibberer spun and fell with two shafts crossed in his chest. A vylaen running toward them took one in the throat and slid face forward to disappear beneath the snow. Another gibberer who stood and hooted defiantly as two arrows fell short of his position had his head snapped back by a shaft that pierced his right eye and burst through the back of his skull.

The vast majority of the arrows flew at the hoargoun. The elves shot from the giant’s right, sticking him from calf to crown. Some of the arrows passed through the meat of limbs, ripping holes in his flesh. Others sank deep into muscles and joints. A half-dozen pinned his right ear to his skull and one vanished within his ear canal.

The sheer shock of that many arrows hitting it did seem to affect the giant. Broadheads had cut through muscle, and even reanimated, the creature did need those muscles to move and strike. Tissue hung in shreds from the ravaged right arm, changing the arc of the club.

This did not, on the first pass, seem to matter much.

The club caught the first cavalryman and his horse on the right flank. The club’s head had just splashed through the water and was on the upswing, so it lifted the horse and rider into the air. The horse’s chest collapsed under the assault, wrapping the beast around the club. The blow jolted the rider from the saddle and he would have flown free save that his right foot caught in a stirrup. As the horse whirled off the club, the man spun around it. His leg twisted in all manner of impossible angles, then he flew apart from the horse and smashed down to the ground before a group of gibberers.

The Aurolani troops fell upon him with longknives. Their howls of triumph shrank to gurgles as a second volley of arrows ripped through them. Shaft-stuck gibberers capered and spun, dark blood spraying. Bodies fell, twitching. And sometimes, in a grotesque display, others could not fall because so many arrows had transfixed them together.

But the majority of arrows sank into the giant’s flesh. The club’s weight had turned the hoargoun more toward the elves, so this second set struck it full front from groin to throat. More important, the elves had switched arrows. The first they’d used had heavy heads designed to punch through armor. While very effective on the gibberers, they did not do as much damage to the hoargoun as they could have.

The new arrows, however, were designed to carve up tissue. The razored edges had been twisted into a spiral, so as the rotating arrows hit their targets, they drilled in, and an inordinate number of archers went for the giant’s neck. Shaft after shaft stabbed into it, paring away the thickly corded muscles that connected the giant’s head to its body.

The giant staggered, then the club’s momentum twisted the body around. The head didn’t turn at the same rate. About the time the hoargoun was left looking back over its own left shoulder, the heavy head flopped forward. Scored tendons parted with whip cracks and the head tumbled free.

The body crashed down moments later. It landed heavily enough to shake the ground and topple some gibberers. Several of the cavalry also went down as the giant’s feet swept through their ranks, but the vast majority splashed on past, driving their horses at the gibberers. They rode through the cloud of snow the giant’s body had raised, hiding them from Adrogans’ sight, but the harsh rasp of steel and the tendrils of pain told him what was happening.

A savage roar erupted from the left as Adrogans’ horse vaulted one of the hoargoun’s legs. A red-gold fireball careened down from the high point on one snowy mound and engulfed a rider. Man and mount vanished in flame, then reappeared as blackened, skeletal figures that fell to dust as the flames evaporated into greasy smoke.

Up on the hilltop stood a creature Adrogans had not seen before. Tall and slender enough to be mistaken for an elf, it had white fur covering its body save for a scarlet loincloth. It bore a small wand and its head came around, searching. Their gazes met for a second, then the wand came up and another fireball blossomed.

The roiling sphere of burning gases roared as it raced toward him. Adrogans’ horse squealed and reared, nostrils flaring. The Jeranese general kicked free of the stirrups as his horse leaped away. He landed on his feet and went down to one knee, raising his saber in a futile attempt at a parry.

Just for a heartbeat, the fireball paused and hung there in the air. Adrogans wondered if the spell had been cast at him and his mount as a unit, and if their splitting had created a problem. It struck him as ironic that he would be trying to puzzle this out in the last seconds of his life. It saddened him that he’d not have a definitive answer before he died.

Then the air stiffened around him and the fireball glanced into the sky. It exploded loudly, shooting tentacular streamers of fire above the battlefield. The blast was enough to knock Adrogans to the ground, and he was not alone. He rolled to his feet amid rising mist from melting snow, then dodged as a fallen horse struggled upright again.

He turned to face the creature that had tried to kill him. Though he realized he would never likely get to it, he fully intended to try to kill it. Steel against magick didn’t give him good odds of success, but someone had to destroy it or more warriors would die.

The creature, and two more flanking it, raised their wands to cast more spells, but never got a chance to complete their magery. Blackfeather arrows flew thicker than the snow, and struck with the impact of an ax chopping wood. The coring broadheads drilled inch-wide holes in their targets and sailed on through, leaving a bloody red mist hanging in the air. Two of the creatures went down immediately, collapsing as if their bones had been reduced to pulp. The last, though—the one who had sent the fireball at Adrogans—had time enough to look down at the holes in its middle. Its eyes were coming back up when a shaft slammed into the side of its head. It whirled in a circle, the wand flying from limp fingers, then the creature slid down the mound, leaving a bloody smear in its wake.

The two light horse legions raced across the ford and spread out, driving the gibberers before them. Arrows struck here and there, as the elves chose specific targets. Some of the Horse Guards dismounted and swarmed over the mounds, rooting out hiding gibberers, and quickly the resistance came to an end.

Mistress Gilthalarwin, the leader of the Blackfeathers, waded through the ford. “I saw you go down. Are you hurt? I have a healer.”

Adrogans shook his head. “I am fine, though some of my people could likely use help. I thank you and your warriors. If not for you, this would have been much worse.”

The elf laughed. Her black hair had been drawn back into a long braid that slithered snakelike over her shoulders. “Ever arrogant, Adrogans. Without us you might not have taken the ford.”

“We would have because we had to. And that is not arrogance speaking. I know my people as well as you know yours.” He turned and looked at Phfas. “Thank you, Uncle, for saving my life.”

The shaman sat on the ground, his chest heaving, but he managed a weak smile. “Armoring you with air had to be done. That magick was strong.”

The general nodded. “Mistress, have you any idea what those were?”

“Another Aurolani abomination?” She shook her head. “I shall have it investigated. I will put some of my trackers on them, too, and see if there are more about.”

“Very good, thank you.” Adrogans waved the trumpeter over. “Sound a recall. Then get me two riders and send them back to the infantry. I want them here in three days to hold the ford.”

“Yes, General.”

The man stepped away and blew the recall. Troops began to return to their units and the officers began to take a toll of the casualties. Men helped battle-broken comrades, staunched wounds, and set bones. The first Blackfeathers crossing the river started to move among the cavalry, directing the most seriously wounded to the edge of the river, where their healer would begin casting spells to help them recover.

Adrogans squatted beside Phfas and felt Pain crowding against his back. “Well, Uncle, we’ve hurt him. I don’t know how long it will take him to learn that fact, but when he does he’ll react. Do I wait here and make him pay dearly to take this ford back or…”

The old man shook his head. “Ever forward; ever forward. If you remain here, you are a target. If you go on, he has to find you first.”

“Yes, and in war it is much better not to be hit at all.” Markus Adrogans stood again and bowed his back, feeling a crackling running from waist to neck. “On to Svarskya, then. I remember it having been pretty in the spring. Perhaps this year it shall be again.”