The screams of the ensuing contest would haunt Bragi's dreams forever. Yet the struggle soon became a sideshow. Other Tervola-horrors rose. Ragnarson's sorcerers unleashed terrors in response.
Through it all the Unborn pursued its deportations in a workmanlike manner.
The whirlwind and halo rampaged up and down the Gap, destroying friend and foe. Once they crashed into Seidentop, the mountain opposite Karak Strabger. The face of the mountain slid into the canyon. In moments the defense suffered more than in all the previous fighting.
Shinsan tasted the bitterness of loss too. Stojan Dusan conjured a seven-headed demon bigger than a dozen elephants, with as many legs as a centipede. Each was a weapon.
"It's the battle for Tatarian all over again," someone murmured. Ragnarson turned. Valther had come up. He had served Escalon in its ill-fated war with Shinsan.
The mountains burned as forests died. Smoke made breathing difficult.
"Pull out while you can," Valther advised. "Use this to make your retreat."
"No."
"Dead men can't fight tomorrow. Every death is a brick in his house of victory." Valther stabbed a finger.
High above, barely discernible, a winged horse drifted on updrafts.
"That damned old man again," Bragi growled.
Visigodred's apprentice suddenly struck from even higher. The winged horse slipped aside at the last instant. Marco kept dropping till Bragi was sure he would smash into a flaming mountainside. But the roc whistled along Seidentop's slope, used its momentum to hurl itslef into the undraft over another fire.
Surprise gone, Marco tried maneuver. And proved he hadpaid attention to his necromantic studies. His sorceries scarred the night air. The winged horse weaved and dodged and fought for altitude.
Ragnarson asked Valther, "Who's winning? The battle."
"Us. Mist and Varthlokkur make the difference. Watch them."
Oh? Then why the admonition to get out?
They were holding the Tervola at bay and still grabbing moments for other work. Varthlokkur developed the Winter-storm construct. Mist opened and guided another, smaller halo. It cruised over the defensive works, snatching the creatures of Magden Norath. It even gobbled one savan dalage. Just one.
"Must have a bad taste," Ragnarson muttered sardonically.
Radeachar returned from a trip east and was unable to find another unkillable. He joined the assault on the Tervola.
"We've got them now," Valther crowed, and again Bragi wondered at his earlier pessimism.
The Tervola went to the defensive. Above, Marco harried the winged horse from the sky.
But, as Valther had meant, that old man always had another bolt in his quiver.
Fires floated majestically in from the eastern night, from beyond the Kapenrungs, like dozens of ragged-edged little moons.
Mist spied them first. "Dragons!" she gasped.
"So many," Valther whispered. "Must be all that're left."
Most dragons had perished in the forgotten Nawami Crusades.
Straight for the castle they came. The glow of their eyes crossed the night like racing binary stars. One went for Marco. He ran like hell.
The Unborn took over for him.
The leaders of those winged horrors were old and cunning. They remembered the Crusades. They remembered what sorcery had done to them then, when they had served both causes, fighting one another more often than warlocks and men. They remembered how to destroy creatures like those atop the castle.
"Get out of here!" Valther shouted. "You can't handle this."
Bragi agreed. But he dallied, watching the saurians spiral in, watching Radeachar drive the winged horse to earth behind Shinsan's lines.
The Unborn turned on its dragon harrier.
The beast's head exploded. Its flaming corpse careened down the sky, crashed, thrashing, into a blazing pine grove. Flaming trunks flung about. A terrible stench filled the Gap.
Varthlokkur completed his Winterstorm construct as a dragon reached the tower.
Ragnarson dove downstairs, collecting bruises and a scorching as dragon's breath pursued him.
"Messengers, Valther," he gasped. "You were right. It's time to cut our losses."
Ragnarson's army, covered by the witch-war, withdrew in good order. By dawn its entirety had evacuated Baxendala. Shinsan had redeemed its earlier defeat.
The wizard's war ended at sunrise, in a draw. Kierle the Ancient, Stojan Dusan, and the Egg had perished. The others scarcely retained the strength to drag themselves away.
Radeachar had salvaged them by driving the dragons from the sky.
The Tervola were hurt too. Though they tried, they hadn't the strength or will to follow up.
The bent old man ordered Badalamen to catch Ragnarson, but Badalamen couldn't break Bragi's rear guard.
Ragnarson had bought time. Yet he had erred in not trying to hold.
As he debouched from the Gap he encountered eastbound allies from Hellin Daimiel, Libiannin, Dunno Scuttari, the Guild, and several of the Lesser Kingdoms. Auric Lauder commanded about thirty thousand men. Ragnarson borrowed Lauder's knights to screen his retreat.
He didn't try correcting himself. Baxendala was irrevocably lost. Shinsan still outnumbered him three to one, with better troops.
Lauder followed the example of previous allies and accepted Bragi as commander.
In thought, Ragnarson began laying the groundwork for the next phase, Fabian, accepting battle only in favorable circumstances, playing for time, trying to wear the enemy down.
THIRTY-TWO: Defeat. Defeat. Defeat.
Fahrig. Vorgreberg. Lake Turntine. Staake-Armstead, also called the Battles of the Fords. Trinity Hills, in Altea. The list of battles lost lengthened. Detached legions, supported by Magden Norath's night things, conquered Volstokin and Anstokin. Badalamen, by slim margins, kept overcoming the stubborn resistance of Ragnarson's growing army.
He reinforced his northern spearhead. It drove through Ruderin and curved southward into Korhana and Vorhangs. Haaken Blackfang, with a hasty melange of knights, mercenar-ies, and armed peasants, stopped the drive at Aucone. Ragnerson extricated himself from envelopment in Altea. Badalamen ran a spearhead south, through Tamerice, hoping eventually to meet the northern thrust at the River Scarlotti, behind Bragi.
Reskird Kildragon harried the Tamerice thrust but refused battle. Tamerice's army had been decimated in Ravelin.
Then Badalamen paused to reorganize and refit. He faced Ragnarson across a plain in Cardine just forty miles short of the sea and cutting the west in two.
In the Kapenrungs, Megelin bin Haroun chose to ignore the threat behind him. He launched another campaign against Al Rhemish and El Murid.
"Damn! Damn! Damn!" Ragnarson swore when the news arrived. "Don't he have a lick of sense?" He had counted on Megelin thinking like his father, had anticipated that the Royalists would conduct guerrilla war behind Badalamen's main force.
He sat before his tent with Liakopulos, Visigodred, his son, and officers from most of the nations which had sent troops.
This ragtag army was the biggest gathered since the El Murid Wars.
"I think we've done well," said Liakopulos. Hawkwind and Lauder nodded. "We've managed to keep from being destroyed by the best army in the world."
Lord Hartteoben, an Itaskian observer, agreed. "The persistence of your survival continues to amaze everyone."
"Uhm." Bragi surveyed his army.
It wasn't especially dangerous, despite its size. The demands of constant retreat hadn't given him time to organize and integrate. New contingents had to be thrown in immediately. Often his captains didn't speak the language of their neighbors in the line.
"Why shouldn't he?" Ragnar asked. "El Murid is Shinsan's client now." He stirred the fire with the tip of a crutch. He had been injured at Aucone. Haaken had sent him south to keep him from getting himself killed. He was too impetuous.