Steel And Flame (Book 1) (41 page)

Above them, spread across the top of the rise, were
several hundred men.

Dornory ordered a halt and called Lieutenant Earnell,
Captain Garvin and his son Balfourth over to discuss the situation.  He also
issued quick orders for the men to form ranks into four equal sized squadrons
under the command of the senior officer in each group.  This left the Ninth
alone under Fraser, the most senior sergeant.  The Kings took the western
position with a hundred feet separating each squadron.

The four senior men sat atop horses, Earnell having
requisitioned one from Dornory’s forces, between the two middle squadrons,
talking too softly for the men to overhear.  A quarter-mark later a man
descended from the clifftop bearing a long pole from which fluttered a scrap of
blue cloth.  He paused at the base to await a response.

Garvin shouted to the nearest soldier, who ran back to
the supply carts which had stayed well back.  Dornory’s quartermaster knew what
the captain wanted and had already dug through one wagon.  He handed over a
matching pole.  The soldier presented this to his liege and received
instructions.

Once the baron felt satisfied the soldier had
memorized his message, he sent him off to meet Fielo’s emissary.

“Is it all right to send an ordinary soldier as a
diplomat?” asked Marik quietly to Hayden.

“This isn’t the court, you know.  On a battlefield,
everything is done by the fighters.”

Marik pondered that while the two men met.  Following
tradition, each unbuckled his sword belt to lay them across each other on the
ground between them.  Thus symbolically disarmed and reminded of the
consequences for a negotiations breakdown, the two exchanged their messages
though the outcome was already a forgone conclusion.

Still,
thought
Marik,
the customs need to be observed.
  As expected, the exchange took
only a short while.  The two sides already knew what the other had to say. 
They retrieved their belts, strapped them on and returned to report to their
respective leaders.

“I suppose that’s a good reason to use a soldier,”
Marik commented.  “They cut through all the posturing and get to the point.”

“Yeah,” replied Hayden.  “And imagine if Balfourth had
gone out to talk himself.”

Marik winced.  “I hadn’t thought of that.  His pride’s
so inflated he’d probably cut the other’s head off in a fit of
self-importance.”

“Killing the other side’s mediator is an excellent way
to get the king involved.  It ruins your good name, too.”

The four seniors received their acting mediator’s
report then, after only a brief discussion, ordered the entire force to fall
back two miles.

“Then why did we walk all the way here in the first
place?” Marik mumbled, but Fraser was not in the mood to hear it.

“You don’t need to flap your lips to move your feet. 
Shut up and march!”

*        *        *        *        *

The Fourth sat around its cook fire, very involved in
the meal they ate, when Fraser returned from another meeting.  He addressed
them.

“It’s another night hunt,” he started.  Groans and
complaints met this announcement.  “Don’t even start, I don’t want to hear it! 
Get to sleep as soon as you’re done.  We all get up in a few candlemarks with
the rest of the Ninth to march out.”

“Just us?  What about his royalness over there?” asked
one man.  The question found support with everyone who had overheard
Balfourth’s exchange with Earnell.

Fraser, for his part, looked irritated as well. 
“Everyone’s going to attack together.  We get to run out first, that’s all.”

“I like that,” Dietrik whispered to Marik.  “The
mighty line of Dornory won’t embarrass itself by showing up without its beauty
rest!”

Marik had been swallowing a mouthful of stew when an
image of Balfourth came to him.  The baron’s son rode resplendent in heavy
makeup and the elaborate hair accessories he had seen on many women throughout
Spirratta, charging sidesaddle astride a snowy white mare, gesturing heroically
not with a sword but an oversized folding fan.

He choked, spewing the mess across Sloan’s legs. 
Sloan gave Marik a look that would have encouraged an archbishop to change his
religion.  Hasty apologies from Marik kept the man from killing him then and
there.  Marik scorched Dietrik with a glare of his own, which the other man
shrugged away with a grin.

“Finish and get to sleep,” Fraser said.  “We have a
walk and a fight ahead of us.”

“Ow!  Damn it!”

“Shhh!” hissed six different voices from the blackness
engulfing Marik.  He threw a glare in their direction, which nobody saw through
the dark, so he reined in the comments on the tip of his tongue.

Half this night lay behind them.  The Second and
Fourth Units were making their way along the dry river bed in the dark.  It was
lighter than it could have been, the half-moon shining intermittently through a
ragged cloud quilt, yet still dark enough to make stealthy travel difficult. 
Stumbling across the uneven river bed hardly lightened one’s spirit, especially
a spirit low on sleep.

They wanted to circle around the west flank of Fielo’s
army, except the river canyon presented a problem.  If they traveled far enough
away to avoid Fielo’s lookouts, the canyon would gape between themselves and
their objective.  Climbing down then back up a steep canyon wall would be more
dangerous than stumbling across enemies in the dark.  Besides, it would take
too long.  The men needed to be in position when Dornory’s other squadrons
began their assault.

It had been decided that their nearly fifty men would
follow the river banks, uncomfortably close to their enemies, then pull
themselves out of the canyon before the sides became too steep to climb.  Given
their lack of knowledge concerning the specific terrain within the canyons, the
plan seemed a gamble.

Marik’s ankles complained whenever they found a sharp
stone rise in the dark.  Given that an enemy scout could be lurking anywhere
looking for exactly this sort of troop movement, he was denied a satisfying
burst of swearing to relieve his feelings.

They had sent their own scouts ahead to detect enemy
lookouts, but with everyone being silent they might walk past each other in
this gloom.  It added a new degree of tension to the trek, knowing that at any
moment they might be set upon by unseen foes.  The men walked, or stumbled,
with one hand upon their weapons.

Before leaving, Earnell had instructed Fraser to hug
the opposite bank instead of using the near shore they had followed the day
before.  Though the river ran nearly bone dry, people usually thought of it as
a natural barrier, a defense covering one direction.  Fielo might have sent men
to watch the river bank but habit could have kept him from posting them on both
sides.  Marik damned well hoped it worked out that way so they could justify
all this painful tripping.  No shoreline graced this side.  The canyon wall
crowded the river’s edge, leaving only uneven stone plateaus worn mostly smooth
by ages of water.

In spite of their care, the air echoed with a noisy
din when feet continuously found holes.  That no enemies had yet detected them
amazed Marik.

He would also be amazed if he remained awake once the
fighting started.  Hayden had kicked him from his bedroll in the night.  Marik
felt that he had not slept at all.  The older mercenary was in no mood to
answer questions, being too occupied with his own discontented grumbling.  They
were setting off in the middle of the night to attack an enemy in an elevated
position in the dark,
again.

No one else displayed a better mood, including, he had
to admit, himself.  He’d decided his efforts would be better spent on getting
ready rather than complaining.

Now he half-crawled through a stone crevice looking
for interesting ways to get himself killed.  Lack of sleep always gave him a
negative view of life.

“Hold up,” Fraser murmured to the nearest men.  The
whisper quickly passed back from man to man, sounding like a spring breeze
across the open grass, if any grass had ever found purchase in this stony
landscape.  Fraser spoke to a returned scout.

“We go up here,” he whispered.  Marik looked at the
valley walls which speared upward in a near vertical cliff.  Climbing here
meant the scout cared little for the look of the canyon ahead.

“Are we past Fielo’s army yet?  We haven’t gone very
far,” asked Marik in his own whisper.  Being near the group’s front left him
near Fraser.

“No choice,” his officer hissed back.  “Just be ready
for anything.”

This hardly boosted Marik’s morale.  Fraser gave new
instructions to the scout.  The other scouts would return in moments.  As soon
as they did, they would explore the east wall, looking for the best routes up. 
Fraser instructed his men to spread out and hunch behind rocks.  “And gods damn
it, don’t fall asleep!” he hissed.

Though very tired, Marik tensed in anticipation, the
edge on his weariness slowly dulling.  In a fight, his desire to live
outmatched his desire to sleep.  For now.

The men squatted while the scouts inspected the wall. 
Fraser sent Duain back to inform Bindrift, who held the rear guard for this
action.

On edge, his ears twitching at every slight noise,
Marik picked other Fourth Unit men from the gloom and gauged himself against
them.  Most showed no sign of tension.  Either they were better able to conceal
it or their years of experience inured them to the moment.  They might regard
him as a skittish young colt if he displayed nervousness, so he forced himself
not to fidget, concentrating instead on the scouts he could still see.

Only two remained within sight.  The other pair had
wandered further in their search for purchase against the canyon wall.  It was
difficult in this light to tell if they were moving, so carefully were they
studying the rock and running their hands across it.  Watching them quickly
grew boring.  Marik decided to spend his time thinking about his sword strokes,
to work on finding a method by which he might dispatch that last imaginary foe.

He sat against a rocky outcrop that water, had there
been any, would have surged around, creating eddies of white foam across the
river surface.  Marik closed his eyes to begin his mental drills without the
accompanying physical movements.

Working out the next in a strike series had turned out
to be a wonderful way to relieve his tension.  When this contract ended and
they were on the road home, he would rope Dietrik, Hayden, Landon and Kerwin
together one night to practice his moves against real opponents.  He knew from
experience the first few attempts to physically use his visualizations would be
filled with mistakes, resulting in an early ‘death’ at the hands of a sparring
partner.  Yet after several runs the real practices might be going as smoothly
as the imaginary versions.

Not that he ever wanted to seriously try holding his
own against his friends.  He might be good in a practice session, but in an
honest fight with them using every ounce of their skill, he would be lucky to
scratch them.  His combat abilities were still far from where he knew they could
be.  Marik renewed his determination to practice harder than ever.

Remember the weight of the blade.
  Marik constantly reminded himself of this simple
fact.  It was easy to imagine cutting down hordes of enemies, but the mental
exercises only proved useful if he remembered the physical limitations of a
fight.  His sword had weight, requiring time and effort to reach his target. 
His mail was heavy, affecting every move he made.  His balance changed with
every step, limiting the responses he could make to threats.

Forcing his mental figures to act realistically under
these parameters had been very difficult the first several thousand times he’d
attempted this mental training taught to him by Sennet.  His friends had
shrugged the technique off as being a waste of time when they could be
exercising for real, except Marik, intrigued, persisted.  Sennet had emphasized
that he must never forget what a real fight felt like.

Marik, determined to use every training method
available that might help him master the warrior’s skills, had kept at the
exercise until it required less effort to visualize his foes.  After a hard
day’s work with Dietrik, he would lie on his cot in the dark, continuing to
practice in his mind.

As he did now.  He constructed his four imaginary foes
and sank deep into concentration; swinging, defending, thrusting, blocking,
dodging.  Marik nearly jumped from his skin when Hayden shook his shoulder.

“Are you asleep?  Come on, it’s time to go,” Hayden
growled.

He began a hot reply, saying of course he had been
awake…then stopped to wonder.  Maybe while deep in his thoughts he had slipped
into genuine slumber, dreaming of fighting his constructs rather than imagining
them.  When his focus sank his mind far enough into the visualizations, the
fights could seem as real as a strong dream sometimes did.

Whichever, he rose, feeling revitalized and
refreshed.  The short rest had done him a world of good.

“What’s going on?” he whispered.

“We’re going up this bastard of a wall and circling
around if we’re not far enough behind them.”

“How long until first light?”

“Call it a candlemark,” grumbled Hayden unhappily.

Well, at least they would have time.  The plan called
for three different forces to strike at first light, the two halves of the
Ninth attacking from behind to distract Fielo’s army while Dornory’s guardsmen
charged in.  Marik would have preferred a strike under the cover of darkness,
except among the aristocracy such an act was apparently considered cowardly,
even if the one you attacked was a lifelong rival and an inconsiderate neighbor
to boot.  But no one had put him in charge.

“Half of you follow Landon, the rest go with me,”
Fraser whispered.  “Watch the man in front to see where to climb.  Regroup at
the top.”  Fraser headed into the darkness with his half of the men.

Marik followed Landon to the route the acting scout
had uncovered up the cliff.  It could have been worse.  Thirty or so feet was
not bad at all!  A veritable walk in the summer sun.  Except for the dark.  Up
a loose rock wall.  With enemies everywhere.  Right.

He fell in behind Landon, meaning he would be among
the first to reach the top. 
And everyone else below can help break my fall.
 
Landon wasted no time in beginning the ascent.  Marik followed uneasily.

Thanks to the dark, he was unable to see how much
space separated him from the bone-breaking ground.  The anxiety he would have
felt in daylight remained absent for the most part.

The climb took far longer than he thought it should
until he finally attained the heights.  By moving out of the way for the next
man, he also moved away from the edge.  A slight shiver passed through him that
had nothing to do with the chill air.  He turned his back on the canyon in an
effort to put the fool-headed stunt he had just pulled from his mind.  Then,
while the third man crawled over, movement caught Marik’s attention.

“Down,” he hissed.  All three dropped flat instantly
at his words.  The movement flickered through the shadows until it resolved
into a lookout staring at them, squinting to pick apart the darkness.  Marik
did not move so much as a hair.

Unfortunately, they had reacted too late.  The man
ran, pulling a thin reed to his lips that hung from a loop around his neck.  A
shrill whistle split the night.

“Damn it!”  No sense in staying quiet any longer.  “Up
or down?” he asked Landon.

“Stay up here,” the archer replied without hesitation
and yelled over the edge.  “Hurry up!  Is anyone still down on the bottom?”

A reply drifted upward.  Landon told the voice’s owner
to run and inform Fraser’s group, who made their ascent a hundred yards further
north.

Not that anyone would need to tell the sergeant
trouble had erupted.  The whistling continued in the dark, starting and
stopping at different lengths in a pattern that must alert Fielo’s army to the
specifics.

“Hurry up,” Landon repeated loudly.  He strung his bow
with a quick efficiency that came from years of experience.

Six men ran at them from the direction the lookout had
fled.  Marik knew his first real battle was upon him.  He drew his sword,
hoping the dark would hinder his enemies as much as it did himself.

Beside him stood Sloan, brandishing his strange,
single edged sword.  Its blade had been forged long, narrow and with a straight
back so it looked like an overgrown machete, though less wide.  A rectangular,
guardless hilt stretched long enough for both hands to find an easy grip, the
wood polished over the years by Sloan’s palms.  If it had been the size of a
dagger, it might have been found in a kitchen chopping vegetables.  Marik wondered
at the usefulness of a sword the wielder could not reverse direction with. 
Nonetheless it looked as mean as its owner.

On his other side waited Nial, with a short sword in
his right hand and a one-handed flail in the other.  The flail’s short chains
were tipped with four small, spiked iron balls.  Talbot struggled to reach the
top.  He would still be several moments in achieving it.

Landon drew back his bowstring, unrushed by the deadly
situation.  His first shaft dropped one advancing man.  The three mercenaries
formed a line before Landon, guarding him while the remaining five struck.

In the middle, Marik’s flanks were protected by Sloan
and Nial, both of whom unleashed an attacking flurry.  Each had two opponents
who shuffled to maneuver behind so they could attack their weak points, take
out the archer and stop the men climbing from the river bed.