The officers raised a tired cheer, and Tamman saw Sean wince before he raised a hand to acknowledge it. His friend's face was like iron as they clasped forearms tiredly, and the two of them stared into the fire together.
Stomald closed two more dead eyes, then rose from aching knees. The captured priests and under-priests of the Temple would have nothing to do with him. They spat upon him and reviled him, but their dying soldiers saw only his vestments and heard only his comforting voice.
He closed his own eyes, swaying with fatigue, and whispered a prayer for the souls of the dead. For the many dead of both sides, and not for his own, alone. Pardal had not seen such slaughter, nor such crushing victory, in centuries, yet there was no jubilation in Stomald's heart. Thankfulness, yes, but no one could see such suffering and rejoice.
A slender arm steadied him, and he opened his eyes. The Angel Harry stood beside him. Her blue-and-gold garments were spattered with blood, and her face was drawn, her one eye shadowed, but she looked at him with concern.
"You should rest," she said, and he shook his head drunkenly.
"No." It was hard to get the word out. "I can't."
"How long since you've eaten?"
"Eaten?" Stomald blinked. "I had breakfast, I think," he said vaguely, and she clucked her tongue.
"That was eighteen hours ago." She sounded stern. "You're not going to do anyone any good when you collapse. Go get something to eat."
He gagged at the thought, and she frowned.
"I know. But you need—" She broke off and looked about until she spied the Angel Sandy. She said something in her own tongue, and the Angel Sandy replied in the same language. The laughter had leached even out of her eyes, but she held out her hand, and the Angel Harry handed over her satchel of medicines without ever removing her arm from Stomald's shoulders.
"Come with me." He started to speak, but she cut him off. "Don't argue—march," she commanded, and led him towards the distant cooking fires. He tried again to protest, then let himself slump against her strength, and she murmured something else in that strange language. He looked up at her questioningly, but she only shook her head and smiled at him—a sad, soft little smile that eased his wounded heart—and her arm tightened about him.
The Inner Circle sat in silence as High Priest Vroxhan laid the semaphore message aside. He pressed it flat with his fingers, then tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe, hugging himself against a chill which had nothing to do with the cool night, and met their gaze. Even Bishop Corada was white-faced, and Frenaur sagged about his bones.
Lord Rokas was dead; barely forty thousand of the Host had escaped, less than half of them with weapons; and High-Captain Ortak had the Host's rearguard working with frantic speed to dig in further down the Keldark Valley. Ortak's report was short of details, yet one thing was clear. The Host hadn't been beaten. It hadn't even been routed. It had been destroyed.
"There you have it, Brothers," Vroxhan said. "We've failed to crush the heresy, and surely the heretics will soon counterattack." He glanced at High-Captain—no, Lord Marshal—Surak, and the man who had just become the Guard's senior officer looked back with stony eyes. "Exactly how bad is the situation, Lord Marshal?"
Surak winced at his new title, then squared his shoulders.
"Even with Ortak's survivors, we have barely seventy thousand men in all of Keldark. I don't yet know how many men the heretics deployed, but from the casualties we've suffered, they must have many more than that. I would have said they could never have raised and armed them, even with demonic aid, yet that they must have is evident from the result. I've already ordered every pike in Keldark forward to Ortak, but I fear they can do little more than slow the heretics. They can't stop them if they keep coming."
A soft sigh ran around the table, but Vroxhan looked up sternly, and it faded. Surak continued in a harsh voice.
"With Your Holiness' permission, I will order Ortak to retire on Erastor until more men—and weapons—can reach him. He can fight delaying actions, but if he stands, the heretics will surely overwhelm him."
"Wait," Corada objected. "Did not Lord Rokas say that an attacker needed twice or thrice a defender's numbers?"
Surak looked to Vroxhan, who nodded for him to answer.
"He did, and he was right, Your Grace, but those calculations are for battles in which neither side has demonic aid."
"Are you suggesting God's power is less than that of demons?"
Surak was no coward, but he fought an urge to wipe his forehead.
"No, Your Grace," he replied carefully. "I think it plain the demons did aid the heretics, and until I have Ortak's detailed report I can't say how they did so, but that isn't what I meant. Consider, please, Your Grace. Our men have been defeated—" that pallid understatement twisted his mouth like sour wine "—and they know it. They've lost many of their weapons. Ortak may have forty thousand men, but barely twenty thousand are armed, and their morale is—must be—shaken. The heretics have all the weapons abandoned on the field to swell their original strength, and demons or no, they know they won. Their morale will be strengthened even as ours is weakened."
He paused and raised his empty hands, palms uppermost.
"If I order Ortak to stand, he will. And as surely as he does, he'll be destroyed, Your Grace. We must withdraw, using the strength we still possess to slow the enemy until fresh strength can be sent to join it."
"But by your estimate, Lord Marshal," Vroxhan said, "we lack the numbers to meet the heretics on equal terms." The high priest's voice was firm, but anxiety burned in its depths.
"We do, Holiness," Surak replied, "but I believe we have sufficient to hold at least the eastern end of the Keldark Valley. I would prefer to do just that and open a new offensive from the west, were our strength in Cherist and Thirgan great enough. It isn't, however, so we must fight them here. I realize that it was the Inner Circle's desire to defeat this threat solely with our own troops, Holiness, yet that's no longer possible either. Our main field army has, for all intents and purposes, been destroyed, not merely defeated, and I fear we must summon the secular armies of the east to Holy War. Were all their numbers gathered into a single new Host under the Temple's banner, they would—they must—suffice for victory... but only if we can hold the heretics in the mountains until they've mustered. For that reason, if no other, Ortak must be ordered to delay the enemy."
"I see." Vroxhan sighed. "Very well, Lord Marshal, let it be as you direct. Send your orders, and the Circle will summon the princes." Surak stooped to kiss the hem of the high priest's robe and withdrew, his urgency evident in his speed, and Vroxhan looked about the table once more.
"And as for us, Brothers, I ask you all to join me in the Sanctum that we may pray for deliverance from the ungodly."
Chapter Thirty
Sean MacIntyre stood with Sandy and frowned down at the relief map. Tibold and a dozen other officers stood around respectfully, watching him and "the Angel Sandy" study the map, and the absolute confidence in their eyes made him want to scream at them.
The Battle of Yortown lay one of the local "five-days" in the past. The Angels' Army had advanced a hundred and thirty kilometers in that time, but now High-Captain Ortak's entrenched position lay squarely in its path, and try as he might, Sean saw no way around it. In fact, he'd come to the conclusion Tibold had offered from the first: the only way around was through, and that was the reason for his frown.