Steel And Flame (Book 1) (76 page)

“Colbey, I need you to keep him busy for a moment. 
Occupy him, then leave me an opening for one solid strike.”

The scout asked no questions.  He only nodded once. 
Marik had no time to consider what this acceptance as a battlefield equal might
mean from Colbey.  There would be opportunities to ponder later.  If later came.

Their enemy advanced.  Marik let Colbey meet the
onslaught alone.  He dropped his working to replenish his energy stores. 
Wherever the cursed mages were, they had left damned little energy in the mass
diffusion.  All around, the sea of warring men looked like a hundred-thousand
candles suspended in blackness.

He briefly remembered Tollaf talking about the mix of
magic users in both armies.  Actual mages numbered the most in both, but they
would be drawing primarily from the line flowing near the Hollister.  Still, he
thanked any listening gods that neither side had recruited any mages beyond the
ones already striving against each other, else there might not be enough of the
diffusion left for him to gather what he needed.  Trying to draw from the line
would surely attract the attention of Nolier’s mages.

Marik visualized the matrix of his exhausted muscles
and their channels.  This time he also envisioned the energy flowing through to
reinforce the bones in his arms and his legs as well.  He hoped it would work,
never having studied them closely, and he prayed it would enable his body to
withstand the stress the next few moments would put it through.

Once he touched his power and opened the flow, he felt
the soaring strength flow through his entire being.  Mere feet away, Colbey
traded blows, losing ground to the lord-knight’s awesome skill.  He moved to
his right, leading the Nolier into a slight turn.  Marik sensed his opening
coming when the lord extended high to block a strike aimed at his head.

Time to roll the dice, let Lady Fate decide his future
and see what happened.

Marik poured every last bit of energy through his
channels, then rushed forward, feeling the muscles in his legs seize around the
bone nearly as tightly as the last time.  Severe tension threatened to twist
his legs in half while massive, painful cramps gripped his entire lower body. 
He forced himself to ignore it.  Pops like bubbles burst throughout his flesh
in painful spasms he hoped signified no serious damage.  His arms, too, tightened
when his muscles burst forth with godlike strength beyond anything he had ever
known in his life.

He swung from the side.  Marik watched the lord’s helm
turn to meet his motion, yet the Nolier’s speed could not close the distance
fast enough.  Marik’s sword crashed full length across the enameled breastplate
with the force of a hurricane.  His bones stressed further.  He knew with
sickening certainty they would never be able to hold.

Something broke…though not his bones.  His blade,
carried through many battles and faithfully cared for, shattered.  The blow’s
force broke it into countless shards of flying steel after the multitude of
nicks and cracks fractured under the tremendous impact.  They rebounded off the
enameled breastplate, streaking arrow-like as the dam splinters had when the
black powder ignited.  Still clutching the hilt, Marik felt fire erupt in his
arm when shrapnel tore into his flesh.  He gave silent thanks that his swing
had turned his face away.  Off-balance momentum kept him spinning so he
collapsed hard into the ground against his wounded arm.

The blow lifted the lord-knight from the ground and
hurled him backward.  His sword fell while he twisted through the air, his body
rotating like a falling leaf.  He landed several feet away on his back.  Marik
looked past his pain.  The magnificent breastplate had suffered fantastic
damage.  A fine network of cracks covered it in a spider’s web.  Fragments
along the line where Marik’s blade struck had fallen away during his flight.

The knight squirmed feebly on the ground.  Marik
lacked the strength to move.  A deathly void filled him, and he realized he had
used his entire reserve in one blow.  That his bones had not shattered like his
blade could be counted a miracle.

Colbey moved instead.  While the lord-knight lay dazed
on the ground, he walked forward, sword in hand.

The frozen Noliers shouted and surged forward, but
were too late to stop the scout from resting his blade point against the wound
in the armor.  With one shove, he pierced the flesh beneath.

Marik fought through his agony to stand, grabbing the
few remaining licks of energy from the etheric within his reach.  Not much, but
it fought off his overwhelming exhaustion when he bent to retrieve the lord’s
weapon.  The massive sword, as large as a claymore, nearly toppled him.  He was
unable to lift it in his current state until he reinstated the working. 
Weariness gripped him so thoroughly that the working only restored him to his
normal strength level.

Tiredly, he turned to face the Noliers.  But they had
not been the only fighters to surge forward.  The Galemarans, content to watch
until this point, leapt to defend their champions.  All around, fighting
resumed, except one Nolier had yet to rejoin the battle.

Nearby, the lord-knight’s banner bearer stared at his
fallen master in confusion.  He did not notice Marik when he walked over to
him, yet jumped back with a yelp when Marik heaved the large blade, chopping at
the pole supporting the banner with his last strength.  The bearer nearly
dropped the pole in shock.

He held fast though, his oath to wield the banner-pole
through fire and catastrophe still at odds with his lord’s death.  Despite his
tenacity, the massive sword had already done its damage.  The pole cracked
under the banner’s weight.  It split where the blade had marred the wood.  A
moment later the fluttering crest fell from its proud heights to the bloody
dirt.

The bearer stared in horror at the downed banner, then
at Marik, then fled back toward the Hollister.  Several of Noliers who had
rejoined the fight with less conviction quickly followed.

Marik slowly made his way through his own lines to a
place where he could sit and rest.  Other Noliers across the field retreated
from the fall of their lord’s banner, leaving the fighting men outnumbered by
the Galemarans.

He watched from his seat beside the remaining
catapult.  The massive sword leaned against his shoulder and blood trickled
down his arm as Marik followed the battle’s final acts.  Noliers increasingly
abandoned the fight, leaving those behind in greater peril.  The Galemaran
command reformed.  In a half-mark, the remaining Nolier army fled in a rout.

They dashed back to the Hollister yet were unable to
close the gates before the pursuing Galemarans streamed through after them.  In
another half-mark, the last Noliers were being chased across the Hollister
Bridge.  Officers gave orders not to follow.  The defenses on the Nolier side
were still too solid to risk an attempt.  Plans for sacking the Hollister’s
opposite end would need to wait for the knight-marshal’s return from Thoenar,
assuming the war would continue.

Marik shook his head.  He had nearly fallen asleep. 
The blood loss affected him.  His arm burned in a dull fury from the many
gashes his sword’s shrapnel had torn in it.

He forced himself up, leaving the blade leaning
against the catapult frame when he went in search of any chirurgeons who had
survived the surprise raid.

*        *        *        *        *

The next day, the survivors found each other.  Kerwin
and Landon were wounded but intact, as were Dietrik and Edwin.  All sported
bandages and Marik wore his arm in a sling.  They stood together as Acting
Lieutenant of the Ninth Squad Fraser informed them of the death of Lieutenant
Earnell, as well as Nial, Pierce, Gerrie, Kenley, Hayden and others.  The squad
was at an all time low, the Fourth Unit sporting a bare twelve men.

“It’s a ruddy low blow about Hayden,” Edwin said
softly while they salvaged their mangled belongings from the trampled tents. 
“He knew he’d die on this kind of contract.”

“He always was superstitious about the border,” Marik
agreed.  “I guess he was right in the end.”

They remained silent for several moments.  The death
of friends remained the unfortunate price of their profession.  Marik did not
know whether everyone else’s silence stemmed from respect for their fallen
friend or lingering shock from the massive battle.  He wondered if making
long-range plans to find his father while he worked as a mercenary constituted
a foolish endeavor.

But foolish as it might be, he would never give up. 
That certainty glowed within him as surely as the sun shone down overhead.  He
would have his answers as soon as Tollaf started teaching him the scrying
workings that would locate Rail.

While he continued shifting wreckage with only one
good arm, he relived memories of Hayden in his mind.  The first time he and
Dietrik had met him in the barracks.  Hayden promising to meet them on a
training area but always finding a tavern instead.  His easy, accepting manner
on most of life.  Marik’s eyes stung with tears he refused to shed in the
presence of these older, hardened mercenaries.

“Too bad he lost it here and all,” Edwin continued at
last.  “I doubt there’ll be any fighting between us and the bloody gods-cursed
Noliers for a long time.”

“So is this the end of it?” Marik asked Landon, who
poked through his retrieved pack.

“For now, I believe,” he replied, withdrawing a mass
of extra bow strings that had tangled into a knot.  “We’ve retaken our end of
the Hollister and we don’t have the men to sack the other side.”

“Not today,” Dietrik agreed.  “Though the king could
call up levies, if there are any left, or start conscripting men.”

Landon shook his head.  “You never conscript unless
the need is dire.  I think the king will shut this end of the Hollister to
travel and leave men to patrol the south river banks where crossing is
possible.  Besides, I think the young Nolier king may have lost more men than
he can afford.  Bandits will be on the rise over there, and recruiting fresh
men for his army will prove difficult for awhile.  He lost a lot of fighters
and doesn’t have anything to show for it except what gold he plundered from the
strike while he controlled it.”

“Was it worth the men he lost?”

“No,” Kerwin horned in, always the expert in matters
concerning wealth.  “However much gold he gained, he lost more men than it’s
worth.  I’ll bet he spends every ounce of it to rebuild what he’s lost and
he’ll still have to dip into his own pocket to finish the job.”

“You really will bet on anything,” Marik observed.

Kerwin smiled.  “It saved my life!  I took a sword
thrust right in the chest, but my winnings stopped it cold!  Course, now half
the coins are bent.  I’ll have to hammer them flat.”

“You going to retire?”

“After this?  I think I will.  I’ll find a roadside
inn along a prime route with lots of travelers and set up shop.  Or maybe not. 
I hear old Kerny is thinking about selling his tavern on the Row back home.”

“As much as Torrance might like having taverns close
at hand to keep the men happy, he might object to a gambling hall opening in
the center of town,” Marik told him.

“We’ll see.  I’ve got the whole trip back to think it
over.”

“What’s the word on that?” asked Edwin.

Landon replied, “Fraser didn’t say, but I think that’s
because the officers are still putting things back together.  The king needs
his forces in other parts of the kingdom to keep the peace.  Once a holding
force is established, the rest of us should be recalled.  Call it two eightdays
at the outside.”

“It’s too bad the knight-marshal isn’t around,”
Dietrik added.  “Things might not have fallen apart so badly if he had been
around to boss the forces.”

“He never made it back,” Landon agreed.  “Whatever is
happening to the west must be grim business.”

“Well I hope they don’t plan on hiring us again,”
Marik stated.  “It’ll take us years to get back up to strength!  If we took in
every new applicant this winter, we’d barely be at half strength, and half of
them shouldn’t be admitted to the Kings in the first place!”

The conversation centered on the state of the Crimson
Kings until two people arrived half a candlemark later.

“I’ve been looking for you,” one told Marik simply and
without greeting.

“Colbey!  And Commander Torrance?”  Marik stiffened in
the presence of the man who had double-shuffled him to Tollaf.  “What’s the
problem?”

Colbey carried the massive sword from the mounted lord
they had fought together.  Torrance remained quiet while the scout spoke. 
“This is yours.  Battlefield conquest or some such nonsense.  That’s what the
officers said when they asked me to find you.”

“Battle loot?  But I’m not the one who killed that
knight.  That was you.  And why is the Galemaran army concerned with a
mercenary’s war prizes?”

Colbey shook his head.  “I ended his misery.  He was
dead the moment your blade connected.  And the officers insist.”

Marik looked at the massive blade with its ornate hilt
and the fallen lord’s engraved crest.  “I don’t think I want it.  It’s too big
for me.”