The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy Page 18

  The fire grew closer, and my eyebrows were hard, dry, and my nose full of the stink of burning.

  Then came screams — from behind us! I whirled and saw Tenedos’s real spell.

  Thak, the Tovieti demon, had once hidden in the Latane River before he attacked Tenedos and me, and perhaps the seer remembered, for the Latane was coming alive, brown water rising here, there, in swirls and eddies. The swirls firmed, grew taller, took shape, grew fangs and claws, ever-changing in their horror, and came across the water toward my boats.

  Soldiers screamed, threw spears, shot arrows, without effect. Panicked, some dove overboard, flailing at the current that swept them into the monsters’ clutches.

  I could dimly hear the screams of terror as boats were sent spinning, overturned, men torn by these demons’ talons, and the swift-flowing water was reddened by blood. The nightmares swept through the boats, tearing them apart, seizing the men in their jaws, and then they turned, moving slowly as if wading, not part of the Latane itself, coming toward the knotted, trapped army along the sandbars and beaches.

  The fire before me roared higher, and I knew Tenedos’s magic was feeding off these deaths, as it had always fed on blood.

  The demons were closer, if demons they were, and not simply created by magic from the water itself, as lesser magicians can create and animate tiny figurines from the living dirt.

  Die well, my mind mocked, but how can you die well if your only enemy is water and fire?

  I thought frantically of trying to charge through the fire, into the heart of the real enemy, but my men would see that as flight. There was nothing to do but accept death, embrace it quickly for an easy return to the Wheel, yet I couldn’t go without doing anything.

  Blind in rage, I screamed at the heavens, and I swear my scream was answered by a rumbling, and for an instant I thought the third god, Jacini of the Earth, had been suborned and was allowing Tenedos to cast a final spell and engulf us in an earthquake.

  But the rumbling came from above, and from nowhere clouds whipped across the sky, driven by tempest winds far greater than anything I’d seen, yet there was nothing but the roar of the fire and terror as the water monsters ravened toward the shore.

  The wind swept down on us, straight down, but its passage had barely touched us when it changed direction, and blew hard, down the bluff to the river, and as it reached the water it grew stronger, a full gale, sending the water demons wavering, spray whipping from their extremities as I’d seen storm surf whip against the rocks of my island prison.

  The wind screamed louder, and the clouds opened, and sheets of rain, torrential, poured down, and the fire steamed, smoked, bellowing its own pain.

  Sinait’s counterspell was great, and I marveled at the power I’d not known she had. The rain grew greater, and I heard a horrible scream, echoing across the world, and saw the river monstrosities swirl, like so many inverted whirlpools, and vanish, and as they did, the fire behind me snapped out, like a candle pinched at bedtime.

  The rain poured down over the blackened landscape, and I prepared for a counterattack through the ashes against Tenedos’s line. But there was no need. The rain broke for an instant, and I saw, distantly, Tenedos’s soldiery stumbling back, shambling as if they’d been shattered by cavalry.

  I didn’t know what was going on, was completely lost. I looked back at the river and saw the greatest marvel of all.

  Through the drifting clouds of wind-driven rain I saw boats coming upriver. I don’t know how many there were, many hundreds, thousands, of every sort, from tiny fishing punts to river trader’s launches to yachts to dinghies rowed by boys and girls, oceangoing pinnaces and even one of the great Tauler-type river ferries, all heading for the bloodstained sands my army was stranded on.

  Numantia had come to rescue us.

  Or that was what I thought.

  • • •

  The first order of business was to get out of immediate danger.

  I sent all my gallopers, including Svalbard and Kutulu the horse hater on a riderless mount grazing nearby, to sweep the line, telling my soldiers that we’d live the day, and for them to withdraw to the river in good order, taking their weapons and wounded.

  I sat on the hilltop, alone, and prayed to Irisu, Vachan, Tanis, and the war god Isa, giving thanks.

  A scattering of men, perhaps forty, stumbled out of the fire-torn mistlands in front of me, and I put my hand on my sword, thinking they were some of Tenedos’s, separated in the tumult, either trying to surrender or lost.

  Then I recognized them by their tattered brown shirts. Skirmishers. Better, I saw at their head Yonge, and he was half-carrying Sendraka.

  I rode to meet them, dismounted, and helped lift Sendraka, who’d been clubbed down from behind and was still dazed, into my saddle, and we started toward the river.

  “So you decided to live,” I said to Yonge.

  “I did. It’s a bad day for dying, at least for me,” he said. “And did I not do well with my impossible task?”

  “You did,” I said. “The spell lifted for a few seconds when you hit them, long enough for Sinait’s counterspell to work.”

  “You idiot,” he said. “You pretend to command men, and you think that is what happened?”

  “I don’t know, gods dammit,” I said, perhaps a little angry. “I’ve been sitting on this fucking hill all day being fucking noble, not out having fun with people like you.”

  “Fun it was,” and Yonge became serious. “I just wish I was a better bowman.”

  “You did well enough,” a half-conscious Sendraka muttered. “I just hope that was Tenedos’s spell arm you hit. Keep the son of a bitch’s magic bottled up for a while.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You shot Tenedos?”

  “With my little bow and arrow,” Yonge said, “like a boy potting a sparrow. Bastard was waving his arms about with all these drones in robes behind him, and this was after we’d decided any gods-damned fool can die charging an army.

  “So we crept through the rear of the Emperor of Pigs’ forces, through his supply tents, through his doxie runs. You told us to make a difference, and we took your orders to heart.

  “The fire was raging and something else was happening, for Tenedos kept pouring water or some kind of clear shit from bowl to bowl, and there were fumes coiling up and around, which is what spoiled my aim, but at least I caught him fair in the upper arm, and heard him screech like a goosed beldame and … and don’t you have a drink, Cimabuan, for the man who almost slew an emperor?”

  That was the first surprise.

  The second was at the docks, a quarter-hour later. Sinait was waiting. I began to thank her for smashing Tenedos’s magic, but she stopped me.

  “No, Damastes,” she said. “Tenedos swept our feeble spells aside as if they’d been mumbled by a village witch. We were truly beaten, but then something came from nowhere, those truly great incantations of wind and water. I felt a struggle between them and Tenedos, and then his spells snapped, broken as if they’d never been cast.”

  That would have been when Yonge wounded Tenedos.

  So where had our savior come from?

  There could be only one answer.

  The boats hadn’t landed yet but held a dozen yards offshore. Other craft were rescuing swimmers and recovering overturned boats.

  The big ferry was close inshore, and as I walked to the water, it pulled closer, and its gangplank slid out and dropped down into the shallows.

  A dozen men and women, a few ceremonially robed, some dressed as soldiers, others as commonfolk, came down it.

  All wore the yellow silk strangling cord of the Tovieti draped loosely around their necks.

  At their head was Cymea Amboina.

  “I greet you, Damastes á Cimabue,” her voice rang across the water, over the moans of the wounded. “And now do you believe we Tovieti fight for you and for Numantia?

  “It was our spell that took the dog-emperor by surprise,” she went on as she
came closer, lowering her voice. “And that startlement was more than half the reason for its success.

  “It was cast with the will of all the brothers and sisters we could reach, asking them to grant us their will, as a priest calls for the faithful to send up prayers to whatever god he serves, and its power took him by surprise.

  “I doubt if he’d be surprised that way a second time,” she said, then suddenly grinned. “And didn’t I sound just then like a bearded old poop who ought to have been hammering the ground with a staff or something? Sorry, but people expect certain things from wizards.”

  I smiled back; then, looking about at the carnage, my smile faded.

  “We thank you, Cymea, and the rest of your people, for the spell. But what about those boats?”

  “An underground order needs to know many ways of getting from somewhere to somewhere else, preferably quickly,” she explained. “We knew you were trapped here in Amur more than a week ago, and had our faithful beg, hire, or order any boat they could, from Nicias to the Delta, to come south.”

  “Your arrival was in the best traditions of the romances,” Sinait said.

  Cymea looked at her coolly, trying to decide if the seer was being hostile, realized she wasn’t, and laughed.

  “I wish I could say it was deliberate, but there was thick fog on the river for two days, which the captain of this ship said is natural for this changing of the season.”

  “Talk later,” I said. “Let’s get the army across before Tenedos comes up with more mischief.”

  “Across the river?” Kutulu asked. “And then what?”

  “Then we plan for the next attack. This battle is lost,” I said. “But the war has just begun.”

  FOURTEEN

  REGROUPING

  We fell back into Kallio, away from the river and Tenedos’s magic. He made no attempt to follow, although Sinait said that he cast frequent Seeing Spells to watch us and, with a note of pride, that she and her magicians were becoming increasingly adept at blunting his efforts.

  Not that the situation was improving — agents came downriver to confirm Yonge’s information. King Bairan was moving north, through Sulem Pass. The Men of the Hills watched sullenly from their peaks but did little to hold him back.

  He crossed the border into Numantia, brushed aside the few border guards who tried to stand against him, and seized Renan, Urey’s once-beautiful capital.

  But he came no farther. The Time of Rains was approaching, and no sensible general would campaign during these monsoons or the Time of Storms to follow.

  From them, at least, we’d likely be safe until spring and the Time of Births. But neither Kutulu nor Sinait took the Maisirians for granted, and I received constant updates from the south, as they thoroughly looted Urey.

  Tenedos moved north, toward Nicias, harrying Trerice and the Council’s army. I kept cavalry vedettes and agents on the far side of the Latane, watching him. They were resupplied and supported by the Tovieti boatmen.

  He then made a terrible error. Rather than maintain his generous and logical policy of welcoming anyone who wanted to surrender, he evidently lost his temper after a probing attack he mounted was driven back by the Guardians.

  He had a dozen prisoners hung on Y-shaped racks in front of the lines, then killed them most horribly. It was as if invisible ants ate at their flesh, and they twisted, screaming, and died slowly.

  His magic terrified the Council’s army, as intended, but it also reduced the turncoats to nearly nothing. The Guardians finally realized Tenedos intended destruction, and their deaths would build his power, his magic.

  That gave them a bit of resolve, and they retreated slowly, fighting each step of the way, toward Nicias, until they reached the Latane Delta. Here they held, and Tenedos’s tactics grew hesitant, as they had during the Maisirian campaign around Penda. Perhaps Tenedos was overly concerned with my rebels and the Maisirians. Or perhaps he wasn’t sure what he should do next.

  Sinait tried several times with Seeing Bowls to reach either Trerice or the government in Nicias, but we were firmly blocked by Tenedos, Gojjam, and their Corps of Wizards, and the agents Kutulu sent never returned.

  I finally decided we’d fled far enough into Kallio, set winter quarters and took stock. My situation was a bit grim. I’d lost about 200,000 men, killed, wounded, sick, or, mostly, by desertion. As always, the bravest units, those who stood most firmly against Tenedos, had been the hardest hit.

  I gave out medals and promotions lavishly, trying to keep my warriors keen. One honor I was especially pleased to make — naming Domina Thanet’s cavalry regiment the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers, as I’d vowed to do if their performance was worthy, and they’d done well against Tenedos.

  There were a few pluses: I was heavily reinforced by the Tovieti, who came in singly and in groups. Cymea and her deputies insisted at first they serve in their own units. I was hardly foolish enough to permit this, still having little trust in them; I used the excuse that entire units of green recruits were dangerous for everyone and scattered them throughout the army.

  She was skeptical but reluctantly agreed. Cymea may have been young, but she was quick and analytical. I hoped she, and the rest of the Tovieti, would stay on my side until Tenedos was destroyed but had no confidence they wouldn’t turn against me as soon as they thought victory might be at hand.

  The army viewed them with healthy skepticism. All knew the murderous reputation the stranglers had, and some had lost friends or relatives to them. But the Tovieti gave no reason for concern. They kept to themselves, observed no bloody rituals that I heard, and tried to fit in with the other soldiers.

  My concerns about what the Tovieti would do if victory threatened were wryly amusing — I, too, was making a nice carpet of the lion’s skin while he yet snarled in the jungle.

  Cymea Amboina had three deputies: the man who still called himself Jakuns, whose abilities I respected; a sour, heavy man named Himchai I’d not been able to assess; and Jabish, who was a fanatic, so dedicated to her cult she’d bring it to its doom by insisting every decision had to be made in its favor.

  But I would have cheerfully enlisted monsters from the deepest pits if they’d sworn even momentary fealty.

  Another source of recruits was the native Kallians, many of whom had fought in the rebellions against the empire. They loathed Tenedos as much as they had when I’d been the military governor in Polycittara under the emperor’s brother, so they joined my tattered colors by the thousand because we were the most dedicated, not caring a bit about my own past or that we were in the worst shape of any of the four armies in Numantia.

  Even better, they opened their hidden larders, arsenals, and treasuries, so the process of rebuilding my army went more quickly than I could have dreamed.

  It was interesting that my two biggest enemies, the Kallians and the Tovieti, were now my firmest supporters.

  The question was, what should I do next?

  I started my plans with estimates of what everyone else must or should do:

  The Grand Council must keep Nicias to control Numantia, and the key to Nicias was the Delta, which so far Tenedos hadn’t attacked;

  Laish Tenedos must take Nicias as soon as the Time of Storms stopped, before King Bairan could move north and take him in the rear;

  King Bairan must destroy Tenedos before the former emperor could unify the country against the Maisirians.

  • • •

  Which left me …

  Dangling in the middle, with a somewhat shattered army, unable to march against Tenedos both because of the upcoming stormy season and because I couldn’t have the Maisirians threatening my lines of communication, such as they were, back into Kallio.

  Dangling …

  An idea of sorts came, but one that I would have to personally lead. That was impossible, since I could hardly abandon this mishmash of a soldiery.

  Then the weather broke, the Time of Heat ending and the Time of Rains beginning, and the monsoons swep
t over us, and I and my army were locked in place until at least the Time of Dews.

  Quite suddenly, a solution to my forced inaction came, in the shape of a man I thought fled to unknown lands.

  It was Cyrillos Linerges, the only one of Tenedos’s tribunes besides myself and Yonge who’d survived the battles in Maisir. In the time of the Rule of Ten, he’d been an army sergeant, then a wandering peddler who’d ended with a dozen stores scattered across Numantia. Linerges was calm, not at all inspiring physically, but brave beyond all comprehension and a tactician who seldom lost a battle.

  After I’d welcomed him like a lost brother, he smiled slightly, and said, “I thought you might be able to use a little assistance.”

  “Hells, yes,” I said fervently. “You’re now … shit, I haven’t figured out what titles should be, but what about first tribune? Or don’t you think we should revive that title yet?”

  He shrugged. “Titles don’t mean much in the end, now, do they?”

  “No,” I said. “Not in a prison cell, nor … nor wherever you were. Somewhere outside Numantia, I heard. I hope it was incredibly romantic.”

  “I let some friends spread that tale,” he said. “Actually, I thought I’d be safest with my wife, Gulana’s, family, figuring no one would ever come after me.”

  “I thought the same,” I said bitterly, “and went back to Cimabue. I was wrong.”

  “I wasn’t … for a time,” Linerges said. “Gulana’s people sheltered me, and I learned how to farm. Terribly hard work, in case you haven’t tried it. Can’t recommend it as a career. But I didn’t think it would be entirely bright to open another store or even go out with a pack train.

  “But I didn’t mind farming. I thought I’d had my time in the sun and had no more desire to soldier, but the times don’t seem to leave you alone, do they?”

  “No,” I said. “Nor does Tenedos. He came after me to serve again, then, when I chose not, he attacked my family.”

  “He didn’t get bastardly with me,” Linerges said. “Perhaps I’m not as important to him as you were … are, evidently. Or maybe I did a better job of going to ground. I heard rumors he was looking for me and wanted me to serve him once more. I made no response, since I wasn’t intending to serve anyone except my family and myself. But the more time passed, the more I realized I couldn’t remain outside the swell of affairs, and doesn’t that sound pompous?”