“We thought that we could—”
“Will you stop telling me what you thought you could do, and just tell me what
happened?”
“As soon as the first of our arrows rained down, the Isembaardians formed a protective
turtle with their shields. Our arrows bounced off harmlessly.”
And who would have guessed that? Axis thought, growing angrier by the moment. He
and Maximilian had wondered about the Lealfast”s experience…but this! An Icarii child could
have commanded better. “And?” he said.
“Then Isembaardian bowmen, thousands of them, stood from their hiding places behind
rocks to either side of the gully—”
Axis rubbed at his eyes with one hand. Armat had set his trap well. Had he known the
Lealfast to be so gullible? Had that been what the earlier incident had been about?
“We were all in a group,” said the Lealfast. “Largely invisible, although our bowmen had
to return to their visible state in order to fire.”
As Bingaleal had to do in order to stage the assassination on Isaiah, Axis thought. And
Armat had been there to see it.
“Tens of thousands of arrows rained into us, StarMan. We…we just couldn”t escape.”
“You panicked,” Axis said.
The Lealfast hesitated. “Yes,” he said finally, hanging his head so he didn”t have to look
at Axis.
“How many dead?” said Axis. “How many left behind?”
Another longer, more awful hesitation.
“Maybe five or six thousand dead,” said the man. “Maybe even more. I know some fell
from the skies, dead from their wounds, on the flight back here. How many left? I don”t know.”
“Oh stars,” Axis said. He sighed, rested his hand for a moment on the man”s shoulder,
then went in search of Georgdi.
Armat walked slowly through the killing field, his eyes cold, but a small smile curving
his thin mouth.
It had been so easy.
A slaughter.
Would that all battles were like this.
“What think you, my friend?” said the softest of voices to one side, and Armat glanced at
Ravenna”s glamour.
“Elcho Falling will be ours within a week, if this,” he waved a hand contemptuously over
the fly-riddled corpses, “is all Maximilian Persimius can throw at us.”
“Most of the Isembaardian soldiers have left him,” Ravenna said. “They are marching to
join you. They cannot be more than a few days away. Maximilian has his Emerald Guard,
perhaps some four thousand—although they are no match for you—and some nine or ten
thousand Isembaardians, including Ezekiel, who chose to stay with him. There are some Icarii as
well. Nothing much. Maximilian”s force is utterly insignificant compared to what you command.
Maximilian cannot stand against you, Armat.”
“Will we get to Elcho Falling before him?”
“Probably not. He is far enough ahead of you to get there first.”
“He has the lighter force to move, too,” Armat said, with some grim humor. “Well, if he
gets to that mountain first then he will have the advantage of a good defensive position.”
“But you can still…”
“Oh yes. I can „still.” If his magic isn”t too powerful.”
That last was a question.
“Maximilian is weak. Once the line of Elcho Falling was very strong, too strong for
either you or me, or us combined. But Maximilian has lost most of the knowledge of Elcho
Falling. He has relatively little power. And he has a pitiful force to protect him. Elcho Falling
waits for us to take it.”
“And his wife, Ishbel? And Isaiah?”
“Isaiah is gone. Dead, I believe. And Ishbel…Ishbel is fatally flawed. Once Maximilian
is dead then she will fail. Besides, if I get the chance to kill her before I leave Maximilian”s train
then I shall.”
Not so insignificant, then, Armat thought, if Ravenna felt a need to kill her. But then,
maybe it was merely Ravenna”s petty jealous heart.
“There is but a little tidying up for us to do, Armat,” Ravenna”s glamour continued, “and
then the mountain and all its power is ours. Axis?”
“He is not far away, according to your report. We can reach him by dawn tomorrow.
Then he, too, will be dead. I have little time for useless legends. Tell me, how much longer will
you spend haunting Maximilian”s pitiful train? How much longer before you join me in the flesh
rather than in glamour?”
“Soon, Armat. Soon I will be with you.”
It had been several hours since the Lealfast returned, and the scene continued to be
disastrous: there was only Zeboath and several assistants to offer any skilled aid to the wounded,
and there were thousands upon thousands of wounded. Eleanon had commanded a force of some
twenty-five thousand and had, so far as Axis could see, led the entire lot into disaster. Many
would die without help, but there was nothing Axis could do about that. Axis had spent some
time searching for Inardle. No one knew where she was, and Axis could not stop a growing sense
that she must be lying dead back in Armat”s killing field.
At least he had caught up with Georgdi again.
“Armat will be coming after us,” said Axis.
“I most certainly would,” said Georgdi, looking at the sea of wounded Lealfast with
incredulity. “By the gods, I couldn”t think of an easier target. He”ll be here to finish this lot off
within what…how far distant is he?”
“The Lealfast who have been coherent enough tell me less than a day”s march.”
“Shit,” said Georgdi.
“I”m tempted to mount up, Georgdi, and just leave this lot to their damned fate.
Maximilian surely has little need of such as these.”
Georgdi grunted. “Give the order, StarMan, and I”ll be right behind you.”
Axis caught his gaze, and smiled a little. “The only thing stopping me is that I wouldn”t
want my legend tarnished by such a despicable action.”
“That”s a shame, StarMan. All you want to do is run away and your damned reputation
keeps you here. I”d be fuming, if it was me.”
Now both were grinning.
“I suppose we”d best think of something to do,” said Axis.
“I suppose.”
“Well…” Axis sighed, losing his humor. What to do? There were, at best approximation,
some eighteen or nineteen thousand Lealfast stretched over the dusty plain. Those who weren”t
physically wounded, like the Lealfast man Axis had talked to, were so emotionally traumatized
and physically exhausted by what had happened that they were of little use.
Of the wounded, Axis thought that there were at least five thousand who were now
incapable of flight. That they”d reached this far was miracle enough.
He looked back at Georgdi, thinking. Georgdi had some three hundred Outlander soldiers
with him and under Axis” overall command. Axis had never meant this to be much more than a
fast-moving force meant to locate the generals. If he had discovered them, then he would have
preferred to move in with a force of less than twenty men to try and take one or more of the
generals—he certainly would have never had enough men to try and fight an all-out pitched battle with their army.
The rest of the Outlander force which had returned from the devastation of the Central
Kingdoms had largely been disbanded throughout the Outlands. They were exhausted after their
campaign and their horrific journey to escape the Skraelings.
“How soon could you remobilize an Outlander army, Georgdi?” Axis said.
“What? To fight Armat? I”d not be able to send messengers out, let alone—”
“No. Not to aid this lot. There is no time…but I have a feeling Maximilian is going to
need you, Georgdi. At Elcho Falling. Listen, this is what I want you to do…what I ask you to do.
Forget the Lealfast. You don”t have enough men with you to do more than protect a small
number of them, and that”s fairly pointless. No use risking good fighters for…”
He didn”t have to go on. For such as these.
“What do you propose?” Georgdi said.
“Mobilize as many of your men as you can and get them to Elcho Falling—Serpent”s
Nest. I don”t trust the Isembaardians with Maximilian, and—”
“By the stars! What has happened here?”
Axis turned around. BroadWing EvenBeat had just landed a few paces away, and was
looking at the chaos incredulously. BroadWing had been a senior member in Axis” Strike Force,
the highly skilled fighting unit among the Icarii, and Axis could only imagine what he was now
thinking.
No, he didn”t need to imagine. BroadWing would be thinking much the same as Axis.
“Eleanon led his people into a slaughter,” said Axis. “He was stupid and unthinking, and
I am too angry at the moment to allow myself to speak with him. For the moment the details will
need to wait, BroadWing. I am too heartsick to go into them. What are you doing here? Did
Maximilian send you?”
BroadWing gave a nod. “And with news possibly even worse than this.” BroadWing
waved a hand about him. “Insharah has led the vast majority of the Isembaardian force away