Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy and Other Stories (32 page)

We are? Quintus didn’t understand the legate’s reasoning, but before he had the chance to ask Mamercus to explain himself, a horn sounded, signaling that they would make camp for the night. He saluted quickly and rode off, for as the senior tribune, it was his duty to see to the disposal of the legion’s ten cohorts as they prepared their nightly fortifications.

The legate’s words worried him, though, as the plan was to catch the elf king between here and the great river Angusa. A fast and treacherous river, Angusa could only be forded in two places. Rovina was one of them, and Tertio’s five hundred mounted spears stood between Everbright and the other ford.

Two hours later, in the general’s command tent, Quintus learned precisely why Mamercus was looking even more sour than usual. The grizzled legate was jabbing a sausage-like finger at the map that had been unrolled in the center of the tent.

“They turned away from Tertio here. They’re marching north now, toward Rovina, here.”

“Exactly as I hoped,” General Varus answered, his deep voice rich with anticipation. He was a tall, handsome man from one of Æmor’s richest families, if not its most respected. At forty-three, he was already a curator, and rumor held him to be a serious candidate for one of the three Consulships next year. And Varus, along with every officer in the camp, knew that returning to the city with an elf king in tow would suffice to ensure that the rumor became reality.

“You see, Flavius Mamercus, your pessimism was misplaced and our gamble is paying off in most handsome returns. The elf made his fatal mistake in fleeing from our horse, because the advantage now lies with us. We outnumber him four to one, and regardless of whether he tries to hold the pass against us or runs for the river, he is lost. In the mountains, he cannot bring his horse to bear, and the greater part of his army is therefore useless. We are too close for him to risk the river crossing, so he will have to stand and fight with the river at his back or lose the greater part of his army. And so, finally, we have him!”

“Or does he have us?” muttered Flavius dourly. “Blasted blighters always got tricks up their sleeves. Turn us all into glass.”

“Legend and lore, old sourpuss.” The legate of the Tenth Legion was another up-and-comer, a mere equestrian, not a senator, but one known to be a rising star of the popolares. His name was Maurus Gallus, and he was Varus’s strongest supporter. “Their mages can’t do much more than throw fire at us. They might as well be made of wood and twine. I’d fear them more if they had twenty onagers instead. Although ’tis true, unless we can wait to bring up the artillery, we shall have to advance naked in the face of their archers as well as that accursed magery.”

“Fire holds no fear for a man behind a shield.” Varus snorted. “Everbright has not been running from us for the last four weeks out of confidence. He is a coward. A bolder man would have smashed through Tertio and used the southern ford, but of course, he is no man! Now he is caught between iron and water, too proud to flee and save himself. They say he has lived more than five hundred years; I say it is time to put an end to him!”

Quintus saw Mamercus roll his eyes as his fellow officers cheered their commander’s bold words. That did not, however, stop him from adding his own voice to the acclamation. For who could stand against the might of the Amorran legions when God Himself marched with them against the evil spawned of demon loins?

Still, he knew a sliver of doubt when, as he left the general’s tent and began to make his way through the thousands of small fires lighting up the night, he saw the stocky silhoutte of Flavius Mamercus facing the looming darkness of the mountains. He waited silently as the veteran legate cursed under his breath then turned around to lay a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll reach the pass by noon, lad. Keep your eyes open and your wits about you as we go through. That’s where I’d hit us, was I the elf. The first will march in the rear with the horse; I want the sixth in the middle with you, and I’ll give you twenty extra horse. The eighth will take the fore, and I’ll give them to Brutus. If anyone can extricate them from this whoreson’s chamber pot, it’s him.”

“You truly think the elf will try to ambush us?” Quintus couldn’t see the legate’s face in the night’s shadow, but the grim tone of his voice was unmistakable.

“If he doesn’t, he’s a bigger fool than Varus. Now, you’ve the makings of a good soldier, Quintus Tullius, don’t forget that. When all hell breaks loose, take a deep breath, look around you and remember that telling your men to do something, anything, is always better than doing nothing.”

The legate squeezed his shoulder once and walked away into the night. Quintus shook his head and smiled after the crotchety old man, and yet he could not quite shake the discomfiting notion that no one who had seen the tail end of five centuries was likely to be a fool.

• • •

General Varus might not have the benefit of his opponent’s five hundred years’ experience, but neither was he a military novice. Well aware of the potential danger posed by the pass through which they must cross, marked by wooded ridges on either side, he sent two turmai of thirty riders to sweep the ridges on either side before the great column began to march through. The sun had reached its zenith by the time the eighth of the Seventh passed the giant boulder that marked the start of the pass, which Quintus learned was called Ardus Wald.

Soon after, the sixth cohort marched in, and Quintus thought that the forward elements of the Tenth Legion were likely clear through to the other side. It seemed that Flavius Mamercus’s fears were misplaced, as on either ridge he could see an Ippolese horseman stationed in a position of overwatch. He was wondering if Varus might push on to Rovina tonight, and had just reluctantly resigned himself to another long day’s march when Marius, the cohort’s centurion, pointed at something high in the clear sky above them.

“That’s a bloody big bird there.”

Quintus leaned back in his saddle and shaded his eyes. It was large, sure enough, but it soared so high that Quintus could not determine its size. It was clearly a raptor of some kind, however, as it soared effortlessly on the mountain winds.

“Must be an eagle. Too big for a hawk.”

Quintus shrugged and returned his attention to the men marching in front of him. But when Marius inhaled sharply, he glanced back at the centurion, then back up at the great wash of blue. What he saw bid fair to take his breath away too.

For he suddenly realized that the great bird was higher up than he’d thought, and much larger. Worse, he saw that someone rode upon its back. War eagle! He watched, frozen with awe, as the tiny rider raised an arm, and a moment later, there was a flash of purple lightning followed by a thunderclap ripped through the empty sky.

The earth responded with a thunder of its own. There was a terrible rumbling on every side, and battle-hardened soldiers shrieked in terror as the ground shook beneath their feet. Quintus was thrown from his horse as the animal panicked, and terrible screams began erupting from the column behind and before him.

Stunned, he pushed himself up from the rocky ground and drew his sword. It was a useless gesture, perhaps even stupid, and yet it gave him sense of purpose. What had Mamercus told him? Take a deep breath and look around you.

He looked around and saw that if all hell had not broken loose, certainly its close cousin had been unleashed. Arrows were hissing from the heights above, and he stared in disbelief as the Ippolese horseman who had been guarding the north ridge nocked arrow to bow and loosed it into the chaotic midst of his cohort before melting back into the trees. Treachery!

Or perhaps not. Think … think! Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong, for the Ippolese were no more horse archers than were the Amorran legions. They were lancers. Elf magic, then? As if to confirm his thought, a massive green fireball was hurled down from the heights and whizzed just over his head to explode harmlessly behind him. Or perhaps not so harmlessly. Someone was screaming, and he smelled the stink of burning flesh. He saw a man on a horse and scrambled toward him. It was Marius.

The centurion had somehow managed to keep the men in a semblance of order. They had their shields out, and Marius was cursing like a demon-possessed madman as he ordered each contubernium into a series of eight-man tetsudos. Praise the Lord for centurions, Quintus thought as he scrambled toward the man.

“You’re alive, sir!” Marius shouted. “I saw you go down and I feared the worst! But sir, we can’t stay here, sir! What do we do, sir?”

Quintus blinked dumbly at the veteran centurion. What do we do? You’re asking me? The realization that the men were looking to him for direction hit him like a physical blow. Wounded men were screaming on every side, and whether he looked to the front of the pass or the rear, he could see arrows and fireballs smashing into the helpless mass of men. They seemed to come from nowhere. Something, anything, is better than nothing. He could almost hear the old legate’s voice echoing through his mind.

“Give me your horse,” he shouted. “Tell the men to seek what cover they can find and stay in turtle-formation until I see if we can go forward or if we have to retreat. The slopes are too steep, we can’t attack.”

“Sir,” Marius thumped his chest and slid from his horse. Quintus caught up the reins and leaped into the saddle. Urging the beast forward with some difficulty, he pushed his way out from amidst the Eighth, and, as soon as he was clear, dug in his heels and galloped madly forward along the rock wall.

He leaned as low over the horse’s neck as he could as he rode past the confused and noisome swarm of trapped and frightened soldiers. He saw the fifth’s centurion was leading a group of ten or twelve men up the steep northern slope, but a fireball flew from the woods on the south ridge and burned the man alive along with the two soldiers nearest him. The survivors, shouting with fear and horror, tumbled down the slope and fled back to the meager shelter of the trapped column. Quintus fought off the sudden urge to vomit. You don’t have time for that, he told himself.

He was just reaching the third cohort when he saw Brutus, the veteran primus pilus, riding toward him. At the sight of Quintus, the centurion brought up his horse and slid from its back before his mount had even stopped.

“Down, Quintus Tullius, get down!”

Quintus quickly complied, just in time, as an arrow split the horsehair plume on his helm. “Can we go forward?”

“No, it’s blocked! Their mages brought down a landslide on top of the Twelfth’s rearguard. Curse the hellspawn! We have to back out of the pass. I don’t think they have many archers up there on the heights, but we can’t see them. No one’s spotted a single one yet! It’s not just the trees. I think it’s a sorcery of some kind.”

His borrowed mount suddenly screamed horribly and reared, nearly pulling Quintus off his feet before he remembered to let go of the reins. Despair threatened to overpower him as the horse ran off, an arrow protruding from its flank.

“That’s Marcus’s mare. Is he dead?”

“No, I left him in command of my cohort. You’ve the horn, why haven’t you sounded the retreat?”

The centurion grinned unexpectedly, exposing worn, yellow teeth. “Not yet, lad. Who’s to say we can retreat? Think, Quintus Tullius. If they’ve the mages for one landslide, odds are they cut us off from behind as well. If those rocks they dropped on the Twelfth’s rear were the last bit, then why are they hitting us here?”

Quintus groaned. Brutus was surely right. In fact, Flavius Mamercus was quite possibly buried under an avalanche of stone already. Still, they could assume nothing; it was their duty to see if the legate survived and had orders for them.

“Give me your horse, then. I’ll go.”

Brutus laughed and shook his head. The centurion almost seemed to be enjoying the madness engulfing them on every side. “No, lad, you’ve done for two already. You’re bad luck. Take the horn instead; if you don’t get orders in a quarter-hour, blow the retreat. We can’t take much more of this before we break, and then we’re all dead.”

Quintus accepted the horn and slung it around his neck. Brutus didn’t salute; the older man simply slapped him on the shoulder before remounting and riding off. Quintus nodded, trying to find courage within his heart, and for a moment he almost believed they might survive this disaster. But his heart quailed when he saw an arrow take the primus pilus in the side before he had ridden twenty paces. Brutus swayed but did not fall as he continued riding, although the way in which he slumped in the saddle made Quintus think that the tough centurion might have received his death wound. God Almighty, fifteen thousand men, trapped by the mountains and beset from above, was it possible they were all going to die here? But he was too young, far too young to die. Surely, it was impossible!

He raised the horn to his lips, then lowered it. Too soon. Brutus was wounded, not dead. He might yet make his way through. Once the retreat was sounded, what little discipline remained would disappear as the legion dissolved into a mob of five thousand frightened, desperate men.

“Where’s Licius Julius?” he shouted to a pair of soldiers crouching back to back behind their shields. The youngest of the tribunes had been with the third.

“Dead!” one shouted, pointing to a charred mass of bones and half-molten iron. “They got him and the centurion at the same time!” Fewer fireballs were now arcing down from the heights, but those that did were larger and aimed more selectively at the iron-shielded tetsudos protecting small groups of men gathered together for protection. The deadly hail of arrows continued too, finding even the smallest gaps in a soldier’s armor. It was a loser’s choice between fire and fletched arrow, and death either way.

Quintus was suddenly possessed of an irrational anger. He shook his fist and shouted at the cloudless sky, not at the enemy but at his faithless God. “Where are You now, Immaculate One? Are You with us no more? Have You abandoned us? Will You leave Your servants to die, blind and helpless, at the hands of Your enemies? Just give us a chance, Lord, at least give us the eyes to see those who strike us down!”