Brightly Burning (58 page)

When Pol reported that, the Lord Marshal said nothing, except, “listen; your ears are younger than mine. We've
got
to be getting near them! Can you hear the sounds of fighting yet?”

“No,” Pol replied, as Satiran strained his neck forward, as if by doing so he could urge the army on faster than it was going already. “Not yet—” But every step brought them nearer, and as he strained his ears, trying to shut out the closer sounds of hoofbeats, jangle of harness, and grunting of men, he
thought
he heard something—

They breasted their way through tall, thick-grown pines that towered over their heads and muffled sound, following on the track of the mounted fighters that had gone on ahead. Pol looked up at the sky and the mountain ahead. The smoke was certainly closer.

“I hear them!” Pol exclaimed, the faint echoes of shouts and shrieks, the clang of metal-on-metal finally penetrating the screen of trees. “They must be on the other side of this forest!”

That was enough; the Lord Marshal gave the signal to charge, and his trumpeter blared out the call, which was picked up by trumpeters all down the line and to the rear. With a roar as of one man, the army of Valdemar charged, beating their way past hanging boughs and lunging through the snow. Pol and the Lord Marshal were carried forward on the rush.

Their momentum carried them through the trees and into a huge mountain meadow, a vast space of snow clotted with fighters. There was no mistaking the curtain of flame rising to their right, nor the horde of tiny figures pouring through on either side of it. In the midst of the meadow, the light cavalry charged, reformed, and charged again, keeping the Karsites already there from forming a defensive square and from launching a volley of arrows at the Valdemarans. Their own archers nearer the pass kept up a steady rain of deadly arrows on those who were pouring through on either side of the flames.

The Lord Marshal's escort and guard shoved at the Lord Marshal and Pol, and by main force kept the little group from being carried along in the charge; they managed to get off to one side of the torrent of fighters, and a squire galloped off on his pony, searching for an elevation with a good view of the battlefield. He came back sooner than Pol expected and led them to a knee of the mountain where they arranged themselves, Pol and the Lord Marshal, surrounded by the bodyguard.

Out in the meadow, the foot soldiers mopped up the nearest Karsites, then formed up in ranks, while the heavy cavalry flattened the Karsites in mid-meadow, allowing the light cavalry time to regroup and face off the next wave coming in.

Satiran looked up.

There, above the pass and just visible where they stood, was a glint of fire, and a miniscule, doll-like Companion and Herald. Pol's first thought was that they were horribly conspicuous.

:So are we,:
Satiran reminded him grimly.
:So are all Heralds. Especially to Karsites.:

LAN kept the barrier shifting, back and forth, trying to keep the Karsites from getting more than twenty or thirty men across at a time. He kept glancing at the Valdemar side of the barrier as well, hoping against hope that the scouts were not on the verge of being overwhelmed.

The scouts were perched in a defensive group on high ground above the pass, where they were very difficult to come at, but commanded the field of fire. They'd taken that overlook right after Lan had let the first lot of Karsites through, and they'd seen what he was up to.

The snow was littered with quiet, black-clad figures.

The Karsites were still afraid to dare the gap at the cliff, though it was now twice as wide as it had been when Lan first opened it. They couldn't know, thank the gods, that going over the rocks was far more deadly.

Now, if ever, was the time to find out if he could manage two fires at once.

He slid the barrier over so that at least he didn't have to keep an eye on the Karsite fighters, and turned his attention to the nearest priest.

:You could always set fire to their robes,:
he heard Kalira say in memory.

But it was the priests who were responsible for all of this in the first place. Why should he let
them
escape harm while his own people as well as the fighters the priests led died?

That thought lent him just the extra bit of anger he needed.

A finger of flame lashed out from the barrier, and caught the nearest priest. And for the first time, he met resistance.

The flames splayed out in all directions, as if they had struck a barrier just short of the priest—who raised his arms in a gesture of unmistakable triumph.

With a roar that was audible above, the Karsites greeted this demonstration of their priests' power with hysterical relief.

No, you don't!
Lan's response was a lash of rage that drove the dragon to even greater efforts. The wall of flame bulged, then erupted toward the priest, as the air itself ignited in a tentacle as thick as a house, completely engulfing the priest in his moment of triumph, even the air inside the priest's lungs afire. It was over in a flash, for Lan could not burn air for long, leaving behind a black and twisted shape on the ground, still burning with blue-and-gold flames dancing above it.

Yes!
Lan laughed aloud, watching the Karsites pull away from the remains of the priest.

He glanced away to check on the scouts, and his heart leaped with joy to see the flood of reinforcements pouring out of the trees. A hundred or more strong, they paused long enough to drop more archers on Lan's side of the pass, then formed up as a barrier along the edge of the trees.

Hah!
Lan moved his fire wall again; this time it took the stunned Karsites a little longer to make the run for the opening, but the opening was much larger now, and more of them got through. As they ran, Lan caught sight of another priest near enough to the wall to make a try for.

This one was quicker than the first—younger, perhaps—and as the tongue of flame licked toward him, he managed to sprint to safety. Lan growled deep in his throat, frustrated.

Perhaps; but he felt the same as a hawk whose rightful prey has somehow left him with nothing but a talonful of fur.

Time to shift the barrier again; fuel was running out.

This time, the gap between the cliff and the fire was
too
big and too tempting; for the first time, fifty or more Karsites flooded through, this time with the priest that had escaped Lan's fire chasing them from behind.

Straight into the arrows of the new archers, and the priest was the first to fall.

Lan jigged in place with savage joy.

But there was no denying the fact that he was losing his effectiveness. Every time he shifted the barrier, more Karsites got through; fighting below was no longer one-sided as more of the Karsites managed to survive the gauntlet of fire and arrows. It was no longer groups of fifty getting through, it was a hundred or more, and the press of those on the other side of the barrier grew as it became clear that Lan wasn't creating the impassible defense it first seemed. Nor could he catch another priest unaware, though he tried—even tried to get them two and three at a time. They were aware of his reach now, and dashed out of the way at the first sign of activity in the barrier. By now they were over the burned area on
their
side of the barrier, and there was nothing to ignite beneath them.

New motion on his side caught his attention—the light cavalry! He felt a surge of new energy as they charged through the trees and into the massed Karsite forces. He didn't dare watch for too long—but surely, surely, the rest of the army couldn't be too far behind!

It wouldn't be long now before his barrier reached a point where the mountainsides on both ends fell away, and it would be totally ineffective. Already the scouts and the Valdemaran archers had been forced to move to keep from being overrun by the flames.

Oh, how he hated them! With every glimpse of a blue-clad body lying still in the snow, he hated them more!

He was beyond Kalira's cautions now; the flamelets that had danced up and down his body flickered over him in a frenzy, filling the air around him, and even skimming over Kalira's back. She didn't seem to notice; there was a red glow of flame in the back of her eyes, and every muscle was tense with strain.

A roar from below—a hundred thousand voices shouting in triumph and challenge—

He had to let them know that he saw them—and that he would still be fighting up here as long as he could stand . . . and that he was about to drop the barrier as ineffective.

POL tried calling again.
:Lan! Lan!:
Could the boy see them? Did he even notice anything but the flames?

A flicker at the edges of the barrier warned him, just on the periphery of Satiran's vision. It flickered again, in a pat-tern of three—two—three.
Lan's using that to catch our—my—attention.

:Yes, since there's no one with the boy to relay what he's about to do,:
Satiran agreed.
:I think he wants to drop the fire-curtain.:

“The barrier is coming down!” Pol shouted, and repeated the warning in Mindspeech.

“Archers, fall back! Form arcs!” the Lord Marshal bellowed, and Pol and the trumpeters repeated that order as well.

Can Lan see this?
he wondered desperately, and MindSent with all his strength.
:Lan, look down here! Give us time to get into position!:

He could only watch and hope that Lan had heard him—or was already watching.

The archers moved farther up on the mountainsides, or dropped back behind the foot soldiers. The cavalry, light and heavy together, dropped away from harassing the Karsites and withdrew to the right and left flanks. The foot soldiers moved up, archers behind them, and made a solid, defensive line ten men deep, planting their pikes firmly in the churned-up snow to await the Karsite charge.

Abruptly, the flame-curtain flickered and died.

For a single, dumfounded moment, the Karsites stared at their enemies, with nothing between them. There was a moment of utter silence; not a man moved, as the two armies stared at one another.

Then one of the priests at the front of the group howled something, and the Karsites charged.

Screaming curses, the Karsite forces poured through the pass in a solid, black mass.
Why
had they chosen black as their color? Was it to contrast with Heraldic White? To stand out against the snow? To intimidate? It was working; Pol sensed the Valdemarans shrinking back a pace from the flood of blackness that threatened to wash over and drown them all.

There seemed to be no end to them; if the Valdemar forces hadn't already been at a fever pitch of excitement, the torrent of screaming men coming at them would have terrified even the hardiest. They surely outnumbered the Valdemarans by three or even four to one.

It terrified Pol. It took all of his willpower to sit calmly on Satiran and relay the Lord Marshal's orders.

They couldn't count on Lan. The boy was surely exhausted by now, and unable to do anything but watch.

Before more than the first rank of Karsites had poured across the blackened line marking where the flame-curtain had been, fires flared
again
—but this time, in tall candles of fire that erupted violently out of the snow, then died to nothing, only to flare up somewhere else. They sprang up right in the path of the Karsites—they didn't do much damage, if anything, but they
did
break up the Karsite charge. Although a few fighters caught fire, rolling in the snow quickly put out their flaming clothing—but no man, having seen his fellow go up in flames, was quite as enthusiastic about running at the Valdemarans full-tilt, at the risk of plunging into one of those fire-fountains.