Die for the Flame (10 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

C
larian prompted Ruttu forward at a walk. The road was crowded with Karran soldiers, wagons, and horses. Teams of soldiers and horses were pushing or hauling burned-out Maggan wagons off the road. He maneuvered around them, heading toward the battle lines ahead. He reached the lines of archers and foot soldiers carrying lances and swords and walked his horse behind them as they shot arrows at retreating Maggan soldiers and dodged an occasional arrow or lance.

Congestion at one point forced him to ride around an overturned wagon, and he guided Ruttu into the adjoining field. As his horse picked its way among the dead and the detritus of war, Clarian came across a young wounded Maggan officer, leaning against a dead horse. There was an arrow protruding from under his arm, and the blood had soaked his tunic to his waist. Clarian stopped his horse to look at the officer. They looked at each other, not speaking.

Clarian sat his horse for a moment and then touched his heels to the horse’s flanks to ride past.

“Do they kill me when they reach me?” asked the Maggan officer, referring to the line of soldiers checking the bodies of the dead and carrying off the wounded.

“You will be dead before they arrive here.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Clarian,” he answered. “And you?”

“I am Kebran, a supply officer.”

Clarian stared down pensively at the wounded young man. “Why didn’t you stay in the forest?”

“We were told we had to get the Flame back from you,” Kebran answered.

“Yes, the Flame. But we are told it has always been ours, and it was never yours. You are just trying to steal it.”

“I don’t think that’s correct.”

“No, I guess not,” said Clarian.

“We are speaking the same language,” Kebran said, amazed.

“Yes, we are.”

“Where did you learn to speak our language?”

Clarian laughed. “I learned as a child.”

“I’ve never spoken to a Karran before.”

Clarian kneed his horse and moved by the wounded officer, threading his way back up to the road and toward the heavy fighting.

Accompanied by three aides, Clarian hurried his horse around the battlefield to the far end near the forest where Martan awaited final orders to ride into the Forest of Darkness and destroy the Maggan city, Minteegan. He found Martan’s troops assembled behind some hills not far from the entrance to the forest. Clarian had not committed most of these soldiers to the battle so far but had decided to keep them fresh and rested for the dash to Minteegan.

Clarian joined them and their officers around a low fire, accepting a hot drink. The officers, seated on the ground, were eating from metal plates, and they looked up at Clarian, who stood before them. “In a few hours we will launch a daring attack at the heart of the Maggan. Everything has been prepared. We will swing wide of the battleground, looping away to the north to avoid detection by the Maggan, and then we’ll stealthily swing back and enter the forest where the main road emerges.” Clarian stared intently into the frightened eyes of the officers. Several coughed nervously.

“Yes. That’s right. We are going into the forest in strength. Three full troops of archers and scouts.”

“Do you think they will be expecting us, Clarian?” asked a wide-eyed young officer.

“They won’t expect us, and don’t worry about them eating you, either. Who would want to eat you? You’re too skinny,” Clarian replied.

The group laughed, if a bit nervously.

Clarian knew they were scared. Tales of the Maggan eating captives had been around for many years. “I’m not so sure those tales of them eating people are really true. I don’t think they are going to be eating anyone. But just in case, when we’re down there in Maggan land, I want someone to do me a favor. I want you to ask them. Better yet, find a cook and ask him for his recipe. Tell him I am the one who’s asking. Then come back and tell us.”

The officers guffawed, and Clarian looked into their eyes, and he knew they would do their duty. When the laughter died down, he grew serious. “Once we are in the forest, we will ride hard to their cavern. We will know we are close when we come upon their fields and clearings in the forest. No Karran has ever been there, but we believe we can make it in a few days’ ride. We will descend into the cavern and destroy their city. We will pull down and burn everything.”

His hands on his hips, Clarian let his words sink in, the fire crackling at his feet, far-off sounds of battle drifting in on the night air currents. He tilted his head to listen. “You can hear the Maggan dying way over here. We are defeating the Maggan army. We stopped their advance, and they are retreating. We have killed them in great numbers.”

“What kind of force will we face in the cavern?” asked an older officer with a short gray beard.

“They have committed all their forces here. There will be light resistance in the forest or down in the cavern, but what troops you encounter will fight to the death because they will be fighting for their homes and families.” The officer raised his eyebrows as if to ask another question. “You have another question?”

“What of their women and children?”

“Fight only those who raise arms against you. When the Maggan hear that we are pillaging their homes, they will turn around and make haste for their city. We will complete our attack in the cavern, destroy and burn their fields, drive off their horses and livestock, and return quickly to the entrance of the forest. There, with our other forces, we shall block their return entry into the forest if need be, as a delay so that we can get out. The Maggan will find themselves fighting us front and rear. They will be frustrated, and I am counting on them becoming rash and making mistakes. They will be desperate to return to their homes. We will crush them between two hammers.”

The officers sat in silence, in awe of Clarian’s war plan. As they gazed up into his face, they saw the determination and a strange, fierce look tighten across his cheeks and narrow his eyes. Clarian acknowledged their silence with a nod and then glanced over at Martan. “I assigned you and your scouts to the force to provide additional eyes in the forest.”

“Fine, but I don’t know if we can see all that well in that horrible gloom,” answered Martan, shrugging his shoulders.

Clarian smiled. “Gather your troops. It is almost time for us to go. May the Flame be with you!”

“The Flame!” echoed the voices of the officers.

Weaving through the hazy smoke from the burning grasses, wagons, and tents and stumbling past the wounded and dead, Neevan finally arrived at what had been the rear of the army. The army had turned and was heading back the way they had come, retreating to the forest. As the army streamed out of the firetrap set by Clarian, many remained in range of the Karran archers on the ridges. Officers were yelling and trying to form the milling mass of soldiers into lines as arrows dropped out of the sky into their ranks. Maggan soldiers carried shields, and these helped to ward off the flying missiles, but many exposed legs and arms were impaled.

Neevan spotted mounted soldiers grouping off to the left. She guided her horse through marching soldiers and the few wagons left unburned. She was surprised to see a few of her company assembled here, along with several other officers who had survived the Karran gauntlet.

She called out to one of the officers.

A young officer swiveled his head in her direction, a grim look on his face. “Neevan.”

“What’s the status here?” she asked.

“Well, we’re trying to put together what’s left of our mounted soldiers. I guess you’re the most senior officer now. No one is giving us orders. But the Karran are attacking back there,” he pointed in the direction from which they all had fled, “and they have light forces here in front of us trying to slow us,” he explained.

Neevan looked out over the front but didn’t see any Karran.

“Where are the Karran?” she asked. “I don’t see them.”

“They charge by close enough to launch arrows at us and then ride out of range. Then they come back again.”

“Who is commanding our foot soldiers?”

He pointed to the front. “Some junior officers. The senior officers are dead or wounded.”

Neevan swung the head of her horse around and headed for the front lines of foot soldiers.

“Come with me. We have to get beyond these ridges. Their archers are cutting us to pieces.”

They galloped past several large groups of soldiers who were jogging in formation down the road. The ridges were lower along this section of the road, and the country was opening up into hilly scrubland. The troops were hurrying to move out of the range of Karran arrows. Neevan pulled her horse up next to a group of young officers cowering between several burned -out wagons.

“Who is in command?” she demanded.

An officer with a bandage around his arm answered, “We just got here. And the Karran just hit us. We’re trying to get some order into the ranks and keep pushing out of this death trap and out into open land, but many of the units have been broken up and are in disarray.”

“I am Neevan. We’re organizing the mounted soldiers over there on the left flank. Get your soldiers into skirmish line order and begin making an orderly march toward the forest. Keep them moving. Place officers behind your skirmish lines to get the stragglers into ranks. Do you have archers?”

“Not many.”

“Bring what you have up to support the skirmishers and to try to ward off the Karran. Leave a lane open in the center of the lines. When the Karran rush you again, we will charge up the middle and break into their ranks,” Neevan said.

She spun her horse around and loped back to where the mounted soldiers were assembling out of arrow range from the nearest ridge. Neevan began ordering the ranks and moving the group to the road behind the skirmish lines that were now forming. Officers were shouting all along the front lines, and disoriented soldiers were responding and falling into appointed positions.

Lillan led her company of mounted archers around the right flank through hillocks and scrub and rock formations to position them ahead of the retreating enemy. After her successful attack on the rear supply train, she had withdrawn her forces to a safe area behind a low ridge. At this end of the battlefield, the high ridges disappeared and with them the advantage Karran archers had in shooting down into the Maggan ranks. After an hour’s ride, a scout waved at her from up ahead and pointed the riders toward a break in the walls of a yellow rock formation surrounded by heavy scrub trees and brush. The scout waited for Lillan and her soldiers, then turned and led the way into the rocks. The passage through the rocks was narrow, only wide enough for two horses at a time. After a short distance the walls opened up to a landscape of rolling hills and outcroppings of rocks and trees.

It took a while for the companies to negotiate the passage. Lillan waited for them, and when they were through, she motioned the scout forward. She followed a circuitous route, staying between hills in the depressions, skirting the high ground to remain out of sight of enemy eyes until finally she stopped in a grove of scrub trees that looked out on the road to the forest. She approached a group of soldiers.

“What’s the situation?”

“The Maggan are slowly marching down the road back to the forest. They are just over the hill. They are pretty disorganized. We ride across their front and shoot down as many as we can. Then we turn around and do it again. They will halt their forward movement for a while and then start up again.”

“Tell me about their front line.”

“Their front line is about two hundred paces across. Their organized ranks are not very deep. They have a few archers. No mounted soldiers have come out to challenge us. We are now in more open country, so their flanks are exposed. But we no longer have archers on the ridges above to shoot down on them. The orders are to keep the pressure on but let them slowly retreat.”

Lillan, now joined by Amran, with their companies mounted behind them, rode over the next hill and dropped down into country with clumps of scrub trees, low hills, and in between, sparse, dry, brown grass. From the vantage point on a rise, Amran pointed out the advancing lines of Maggan soldiers. Lillan decided on her next move. Amran would attack the front ranks of the enemy, and she would simultaneously lead her column into a flank attack.

She led her soldiers down into cover behind trees and rocks along where the Maggan right flank would soon be passing. Lillan ordered two hundred archers to dismount and creep up through the scrub cover to lie in wait. She then led a hundred and fifty mounted archers into a nearby grove of trees.

The Maggan lines, better organized now, were moving more quickly up the road now that they were out of the ridge country. In a short time, they passed the hidden dismounted archers. Under cover of the trees, Lillan quieted her restless horse and lined up her mounted archers in single file behind her. They waited. The ragged Maggan lines streamed by, soldiers clutching wounds and carrying comrades. Their slogging ranks, weighed down with exhaustion, pressed onward down the road.

Suddenly shouting erupted, and hundreds of voices cried out. Horns blared. Lillan knew Amran had attacked the front lines by racing at a gallop in single file across the face of the marching ranks, a long line of mounted archers shooting their arrows and then drawing another and shooting another until each rider had passed before the entire Maggan line and ducked into cover on the other side.

“Now!” Lillan shouted. She kicked her horse into full gallop, bursting from the trees, and within twenty strides her horse reached the right flank of the marching Maggan. She turned her horse to parallel the marching soldiers, drew an arrow and sunk it at point-blank range into a frightened young soldier. Behind her at a gallop came her archers in single file racing along the outer edge of the Maggan, firing arrows into their ranks. On the flank, Lillan’s dismounted archers released a cloud of arrows. Lillan raced toward the front of the line. An arrow zipped by her head as she kicked her horse to greater speed. A spear came flashing by her chest. A Maggan soldier ran to intercept her, brandishing a sword. She swerved her horse to put herself out of reach as she pulled an arrow from the quiver.