Our total aerial force went whirling off to put into effect the final dazzlement. Even the lumbering old weyver went, with a rascally gang of cutthroats concealed behind her low bulwarks and a dozen varters ready to spew out chunks of Ovalia’s fine street paving.
“You’ll never dupe all that cramph Hangrol’s aerial forces, Dray!” Turko rested his massive shield on his saddle. “By Morro the Muscle! We’ll have the hornets around our ears-”
“Difficult to say.” I spoke seriously, for this was a tactical and psychological problem. “If our fellows can draw off a goodly part, our archers can deal with the rest.”
“I just wish Seg was here,” said Turko, and gentled his zorca between his knees. By Zair! And didn’t I! And Inch, too, and all the others!
We watched the lads of the Tenth Kerchuri running back down the dry, ancient riverbed scattering their caltrops. If you question — if you condemn — the use of youngsters here, I sympathize. But they were born on Kregen, Vallians, and they burned to do what they could. The chevaux de frise were unloaded from the krahnik carts and carried forward ready to be run out where needed. I lifted in the stirrups to survey the scene. There was no fleet voller for me now to oversee the dispositions. Our men melted into the shadows of the bushes, and were still. A lazy breeze tufted the leaves, which was most useful and was taken by many men as a sign of the direct assistance we had from Opaz and Vox. Into that ravine trotted Jiktar Travok Ramplon’s regiment. The zorcas looked marvelous. The men had smartened themselves and their mounts up for the occasion, and wore their brightest uniforms. Red and gold glittered in the light. They rode forward and they suddenly seemed, despite their trim appearance and martial order, very small and lonely and isolated trotting up that dusty defile. They trotted on and the hooves of the zorcas glittered through the dust, the spiral horns jutted proudly, the tails switched impatiently. Each trooper held his bow in his left hand, straight down his left leg, and his right hand gripped the nocked arrow. Jogging along in the trot, guiding their mounts with knees and body movement and voice, the swods of the zorca bows rode forward.
At the far end of the defile appeared the scouts from Hangrol’s forces. Overhead a bunch of mirvols flew up ready to swoop down. I held my breath. You can see the tricky situation. Too soon and Hangrol would never follow. Too late, and that fine zorca regiment would be a mangled ruin. With faithful Fango between his knees, confident, exalted, Jiktar Ramplon judged it to a nicety. His men loosed at the mirvols. The flying animals swerved away, preferring to leave to the advance guard of land cavalry the sweeping away of this troublesome zorca unit. Remember, Ramplon had been baiting these adversaries for the past days. They had blood in their eye. The leading units of enemy zorcas simply let rip a yell of rage and anger and charged like leems. Jiktar Ramplon gave his orders, his trumpeter blew, the regiment pivoted and pulled back, building up their speed into a fine, free gallop. Around that kink in the defile Ramplon sent on his regiment, for he had chosen to ride last, for which I marked him. He had the Twenty-seventh Regiment of zorca archers. They raced around that bend, and the following cavalry roared around after them. Dust smoked into the air. When the pursuing cavalry were out of sight of their following main body, our archers let fly. Ramplon’s men hauled up, skidding, turned, and those bows came up and showered shafts into the abruptly huddled, terror-stricken mass. Shot to pieces, the enemy zorcas tried to flee back, and ran full tilt into a wall of steel that closed as though on a hinge across the defile. The Tenth Kerchuri received the fleeing cavalry as though they received a charge. Perhaps half a dozen zorcamen survived to scramble around the edges and run for it
— and each one of that half-dozen was brought down by a marksman.
The noise was such, I hoped, as to convince Hangrol that his advance cavalry had successfully chased off the annoying hornets who had been stinging him so unmercifully. The first elements of his main body came into sight, and I judged that Hangrol did think so. Apart from those early mirvols, there was no sign of his aerial support.
I looked back to where the 2ESW and the EYJ lay waiting in the runnels in the ground. All our men waited in concealment. Hangrol’s forces advanced, led by more cavalry, with bunches of irregulars following, and backed by regiments of the iron legions of Hamal. I counted quickly. Ten regiments… They were the hard nut we had to crack. Like the other troops in Hangrol’s force, the Hamalese swods were mounted up; they would dismount to go into action.
The moment approached and nothing was going to stop it now.
The Jiktars of the Archers awaited the signal. The churgurs gathered themselves. The kreutzin strained to get in among those brilliant adversaries. Close they came, nearer and nearer, riding with all the aplomb and confidence of men sure of themselves.
Any minute now…
Deb-Lu-Quienyin appeared at my side.
He was standing and leaning back, with his left hand pressed flat against thin air, as though he supported himself against an invisible wall. His clothes were filthy, torn, and tattered, and his turban was hanging over an ear. His face worked with passion and near despair, and he glared upon me with frightful meaning.
I bent from Shadow’s back to peer more closely.
With an effort, Quienyin motioned.
Not understanding what he wanted, and aware that Turko was taking no notice whatsoever, I for a moment thought I was hallucinating and imagining I saw the Wizard of Loh. Hangrol’s army marched on and the distance lessened. The giving of the signal could not be long delayed. I looked back at Quienyin, and he was still there, an apparition bold in the light of the suns. He lifted his right hand with a gesture of weariness. The short sword in his fist was broken in half. He dropped the sword. The moment it left his hand it vanished.
He pointed. He pointed with his right forefinger. He pointed at his eyes. I leaned from the zorca, staring. I stared into the eyes of the Wizard of Loh…
I was looking into a stone-walled chamber pierced by tall windows through which the suns light streamed in emerald and ruby. Silda Segutorio, half-naked, blood staining her shoulder, was staggering up distraught and trying to wield a blood-crusted rapier. Crumpled in a corner lay the body of a man in clothes splashed with blood. I stared. I felt the sickness rising. The man’s fist rested on a sword, flat on the straw-covered stone.
My vision swung to the doorway. Men crowded in, fierce, bright, savage men, exulting. They were clansmen. Their weapons flickered in the brilliant light. They kicked aside the dreadful evidences of their handiwork. They trod contemptuously over the shattered corpses of men wearing the red-and-yellow uniforms of the Emperor’s Sword Watch. Clansmen, savage, horrific, far more lethal than any barbarian, they jostled in to be the first to slay the Wizard and Silda and the man who lay crumpled in the corner. I knew that man. His fist made a sudden spasmodic attempt to seize the sword, and fell away, limp. I knew the sword.
That was a great Krozair longsword.
That man was my son Drak.
Chapter twenty-one
Turko said, “Almost time, Dray! Another hundred paces or so, and then…”