The night was Shinsan's. Savan dalage in scores stalked the darkness, trying to reach the Inner Circle and Bragi's commanders. Captains and a wizard died....
Now Bragi knew why Badalamen had chosen Palmisano.
A half-ruined Empire-era fortress crowned a low hill beside the eastern camp. Within it, after coming west, Magden Norath had established new laboratories. From it, now, poured horrors which ripped at the guts of the western army.
The second day was like the first. Men died. Ragnarson probed across both rivers, had both thrusts annihilated. His men filled more of Badalamen's ditch.
Again the night belonged to the savan dalage, though Varthlokkur and his circle concentrated on Norath's stronghold instead of the Tervola.
Marco predicted the Gap would be open in eleven days.
The third day Ragnarson sent up mangonels, trebuchets, and ballistae to knock holes in the legion ranks so Itaskian arrows could penetrate the shieldwalls. His sappers and porters finished filling the ditch.
That night the savan dalage remained quiet. Ragnarson should have been suspicious.
Next morning he stared across the filled ditch at lines of new cheveaux-de-frise. There could be no cavalry charge into those.
The fringe battles picked up. The bent man threw in his surviving dragons. Norath's creatures, excepting the light-shunning savan dalage, swarmed over the cheveaux and hurled themselves against the northern pikes.
"The tenor is changing," Bragi told Haaken. "Tempo's picking up."
Haaken's wild dark hair fluttered in the breeze. "Starting to realize the way the wind's blowing. Their day is over. Them spook-pushers are finally doing some good."
It looked that way. Once Norath's monsters disappeared, Varthlokkur could concentrate on Shinsan's army....
Ragnarson's heavy weapons bombarded the cheveaux with fire bombs. Behind the western lines, esquires and sergeants prepared the war-horses. Above, Radeachar and Marco swooped and weaved in a deadly dance with dragons. Bragi waved. "What?"
"There." Ragnarson pointed. Badalamen, too, was observing the action. He waved back.
"Arrogant bastard," Haaken growled. Bragi chuckled. "Aren't we all?"
Ragnar galloped up. "We'll be ready to charge at about four." He had spent a lot of time, lately, with Hakes Blittschau, enthralled by the life of a knight.
"Too late," Bragi replied. "Not enough light left. Tell them tomorrow morning. But keep up the show."
Badalamen didn't respond. He recognized the possible and impossible.
That night he launched his own attack. Savan dalage led. As always, panic surrounded their advance. Radeachar swept to the attack. Above, Marco tried to intimidate the remaining dragons. Following the savan dalage, unnoticed in the panic, came a column of Shinsan's best.
As Haaken had observed, Badalamen had sniffed the wind. This move was calculated to disrupt Ragnarson's growing advantages.
The attack drove relentlessly toward the hill where the captains and kings maintained their pavilions, and where the war-horses were kept.
Kildragon and Prataxis woke Ragnarson, Reskird shouting. "Night attack! Come on! They're headed this way."
The uproar approached swiftly. Norath had committed everything he had left. Panic rolled across the low hill.
Ragnarson surveyed the night. "Get some torches burning. Fires. More light. We've got to see." And light would turn the savan dalage.
Ragnar, Blittschau, and several knights ran past, half-armored, trying to reach the horses. If the enemy scatteredthose....
"Haaken?" Bragi called. "Where the hell's my brother?" He looked and looked, couldn't find Haaken anywhere.
Blackfang hadn't been able to sleep. For a time he had watched Varthlokkur work, marveling both at the Winterstorm and Mist, who manipulated some symbols from within the construct. He shook his head sadly. He had never had a woman of his own, just chance-met ladies for a night or a week, their names quickly forgotten. No doubt his own had slipped their minds as quickly.
He had begun feeling the weight of time upon him, his lack of a past. His life he had devoted to helping Bragi build Bragi's dreams. Now he realized he had never spun a dream of his own.
The noise from the front was different tonight. Badalamen was up to something. He rushed toward the clamor, torch in one hand, sword in the other. He didn't fear the savan dalage. He had met them before. A torch could hold them at bay till Radeachar arrived.
Badalamen drove through the juncture of Iwa Skolovdan forces with those of Dvar, into the Itaskians behind. Men of all three countries shrieked questions, got no intelligible answers. Some fought one another in their confusion.
A solid, single black column poured through.
Blackfang, through sheer lungpower, assembled company commanders, calmed panic, gave orders, led the counterattack.
Pikemen and arrows. A deadly storm tore at the legions, opening gaps. The Iwa Skolovdans insinuated themselves, broke the unity of the column. Blackfang, howling, brought more men to bear. That part of Shinsan's advance devolved into melee. Haaken, with a woodcutter's axe, inspired those near enough to see. Always, when not shouting other orders, he called for torches and fires.
Forty-five minutes later the gap was gone. The line was secure. He turned his attention to the thousands who had broken through.
The headquarters hill was aflame. It looked bad for its defenders.
Though near exhaustion, Blackfang ran to help his brother.
The savan dalage caught him halfway. There were three ofthem. He couldn't swing his torch fast enough. He went down cursing his killers.
The dwarf kicked the roc into a screaming, sliding dive. Fear and exhilaration contested for his soul. One dragon side-slipped winging over, the air rippling its wings. They fluttered and cracked like loose tent canvas in a high wind. The monster vanished in the darkness.
"One away," Marco crowed. "Come on, you bastards."
The other two held the turn and took the dive, wingtip to wingtip, precisely, their serpentine necks outthrust like the indicting fingers of doom. They were old and cunning, those two.
The fire and fury of the battlefield expanded swiftly, rocking and spinning as the roc maneuvered. To Marco it seemed someone had hurled him at a living painting of the floor of Hell. The roar swelled. His heart hammered. This was his last chance. A do or die game of chicken. They had to pull up first....
They were old and wise and knew every molecule of the wind. They stayed with him. Their wings beat like brazen gongs when they broke their fall.
Marco glimpsed startled faces turned suddenly upward. Screams. A dragon shriek when one pursuer's wingtip dipped too low and snagged a tent top.
"Eee-yah!" Marco screamed over his shoulder. "Let's go, you scaly whoreson. You and me. We got a horse race now." One on one he could outfly the granddaddy dragon of them all.
He didn't see the winged horse quartering in. He didn't see the spear of light.
He felt pain, and an instant of surprise when he realized there was nothing but air beneath him. The stars tumbled and went out.
Six columns of two thousand men each followed scattered trails, captained by old killers named Rahman, El Senoussi, Beloul. A seventh's path defined their base course.
It was tired, deserted country they rode. The few survivors vanished at the sound of hooves.
The young King had led his tired, grumbling old terrorists through night-march after night-march till, now, they saw dragons scorching the northern sky.
"It's begun," Megelin sighed. He planted his standard and waited for his commanders.
He fell asleep wondering if his gesture had merit, if his father's ghost would approve.
The night stalkers pursued the creature calling himself the Silent, who for centuries had been anything but. He hated light almost as much as they, but in his terror spelled anything to keep them at bay. Balls of flame floated overhead. He flailed about with swords of fire.