The Grand Crusade (39 page)

Even as she uttered those words, the place her mother had taken her to came back. The Oromise were pushing her mother to do what she was doing. Her mother had told her of the dragons and how they betrayed the Oromise, but her mother had told her many other things that her time in the south seemed to contradict. None of it made sense.

Sayce’s lips pressed into a grim line. “You’re not the only one who doesn’t understand. Have you lost friends in the war?”

Isaura remembered thekryalniriTribulation. “One. I do not have many friends here. They hate me, like you do, or fear me.”

Sayce smiled. “I know fear and hatred. My father was king, so people sought me out to win favor or power, or they slunk away from me, afraid. I was not a person to them, but an object. I was a means to power or a way to direct it. At

it could penetrate armor, and even if it couldn’t, the force might be enough to knock a warrior down. While draconetteers could not shoot as fast or as accurately as an archer, neither did they take a lot of training to produce.

Alexia further suspected that the presence of draconetteers was not sufficient to explain the need for so much firedirt. She believed that somewhere just beyond the crest of the hill, the Aurolani had set up several batteries of skycasters—short, squat weapons that used a charge of firedirt to loft a missile in a high arc. The missile was itself packed with more firedirt and fused, so it would explode in the air above the battlefield. The resulting spray of iron shrapnel could shred flesh and destroy many a unit.

The Aurolani had arrayed themselves simply. A pair of cavalry battalions formed each wing, with one battalion drawn back in reserve. Similarly three battalions of infantry were held back. A regiment of heavy infantry, including one battalion of draconetteers, occupied the center, while the other two lighter regiments overlapped the center and the two wings. The lighter regiments had a gap between them, which is where Alexia assumed the skycasters would be located. Once the fog had burned off, she would have a Gyrkyme scout confirm her suspicions.

She carefully arrayed her troops. Two regiments, one behind the other, made up her center. On each wing she placed one regiment of heavy infantry. Behind the heavy infantry each side got two battalions of heavy cavalry. Then, on the extreme right, she stacked three battalions of light cavalry. In reserve she kept some heavy cavalry, and roughly half of her infantry. That infantry was largely made up of mercenaries and untested volunteers, whom she did not want to rely on until she had seen how they would fight.

She tried to project herself into the mind of her enemy, but that enemy was an undeadsullanciri, which made the task very difficult. But while the Aurolani had the superior tactical position, the sheer press of numbers should be enough to drive them back and break them. It would be a victory won with a lot of blood, but it would be a victory nonetheless.

Losing is less of a problem for the Aurolani, since all they really need do is bleed us. The Aurolani hordes seemed able to withstand incredible losses. Alyx supposed it could be all bluff on Chytrine’s part to demoralize the south, but to keep coming after having an army wiped out in Muroso was something the south never would have done. The Aurolani just kept pushing, and Alexia could not shake the idea that she was being trapped.

The battle also wasn’t arrayed exactly as she had said it would be in her supposed dream, but it was close enough to cause her to wonder what Chytrine was thinking. Getting into her head, however, was even more difficult than understanding Tythsai. From Alexia’s perspective, however, the proposition was simple. If she thrust her forces forward, both skycaster assaults and draconetteers would weaken her formation enough that Aurolani cavalry would punch through, and her infantry would then slaughter whoever was left.

That meant her strategy was pretty clear: she could not advance her troops the way the Aurolani hoped she would.

Alexia, wearing golden mail girded at the waist with her sword belt and bearing the sword Heart, mounted her horse. She rode toward the east and the rising sun, to the point where the light cavalry waited. She reined up at the rear of that formation, then nodded to a signalman. He blew an alert, then the battalion designators, followed by an advance. He repeated the series of notes, and other buglers in the force relayed them throughout.

Because she could not send her infantry forward, she had to entice the Aurolani to come to her. The only real advantage she had over the Nor’witch’s troops was that her troops had discipline. They would not break, run, or act without orders. Everyone had been told what the plan was, so they knew their part and were willing to play it. That was especially true if it would keep them out of range of the skycasters.

The light cavalry, led by the Alcidese Queen’s Light Horse, raced out and around on an arc from east to north. They splashed through the wet turf quickly enough, then headed up the incline toward the Aurolani left wing. The young sun shone brightly from polished helms. Tabards and pennants of red, green, and white flapped and snapped, and the three battalions raced forward in good

order.

The Aurolani cavalry unit toward which they headed had only six hundred members. It begin to shift so the warriors could countercharge. The riders— gibberers mostly, with a fewkryalniriand more human renegades—kept their frostclaw mounts under control with difficulty. The feathered beasts snapped tooth-filled jaws at the oncoming horsemen, and their huge, sickle-shaped claws twitched in anticipation of rending flesh.

Alexia’s troops knew the effective range of a frostclaw charge was not much more than a hundred yards. While the creatures could cross that distance in an amazingly short time, their nature as pack hunters didn’t give them a lot of endurance. Normally another frostclaw would pick up the chase where the last abandoned it and, if allowed to lope, any one of them could chase prey forever. At the end of the charge, however, their strength would begin to flag, and they would begin to look for easier prey.

The Alcidese horsemen reached that range and began to wheel northeast, presenting their flank to the Aurolani troops. The soldiers loosed a flight of arrows from their short horse bows. The arrows flew in a high arc and landed mostly on target. The shots were not aimed, but many found flesh or bounced off armor. A few Aurolani fell, and more than one frostclaw bit at an arrow in its side, but the volley had done little more than harass.

Then the Jeranese Royal Cavalry executed the same maneuver and hit more of the cavalry with arrows. Behind the enemy lines drums boomed and banners shifted. Alexia found it easy to imagine the skycasters getting adjusted to cover the left flank. As the Jeranese horsemen completed the curl and headed back

around to their lines, the Aurolani cavalry broke into a charge, but without organization. Some frostclaws started, others followed, with six hundred of them coming in waves.

The third light cavalry unit in her charge slowed as the Aurolani charged. Unlike the other two units, the Murosan First Vengeance were not armed with horse bows. They possessed crossbows and released a volley that flew in virtually a flat arc, well aimed. It scythed through the first wave of Aurolani cavalry.

Frostclaws shrieked furiously as the steel-headed quarrels slammed into them or pitched their riders from the saddle. Some warriors found themselves dragged behind their mounts, while others, less fortunate, had their mounts turn on them, gnawing themselves free of their burden. Those frostclaws that went down spilled their riders to the ground. Other frostclaws leaped over the dead and dying and kept coming, but more common were collisions between a charging beast and one thrashing in the throes of agony.

A bugle blew near Alexia, which brought the Alcidese and Jeranese units around to the east again, reversing their retreat. They moved a bit wider, so the Aurolani charge would pass between them and their own lines. They raked the Aurolani with another volley, then each archer began to pick targets. Again the shots killed few but pricked many, and drove the near flank to turn toward the center of the battlefield, causing more confusion.

The Aurolani lead element did hit the Murosan light cavalry and blasted into it hard. Horses reared and toppled, entrails spraying out from slashed bellies. Swords flashed silver one moment, then rose red. Blood sprayed from severed limbs, and men clutched at cloven faces or at the lances that had pierced their bellies. Frostclaws bit horses across the muzzle, crushing their skulls, though occasionally a steel-shod hoof dented a temeryx pate.

The bugle that had signaled the light cavalry to turn also triggered other activity on Alexia’s line. Both light infantry regiments that formed her center began to withdraw, with the front ranks turning and running away, back through their own lines. From her vantage point she could see them reach the back of their own formation and regroup, but to Aurolani eyes—and especially those of the frostclaws—her troops were running.

The frostclaws that had turned toward the center read nothing but prey behavior in the retreat, so they sprinted toward the opening. Mud and tufts of grass splashed up, soiling their white feathers. The soft ground slowed their charge, but it mattered little. The riders could not control their mounts, and their mounts wanted prey.

The infantry retreat, however, opened a gap that allowed a pair of heavy cavalry battalions—the Alcidese Iron Horse—to charge into the center. As the frostclaws left the swampy part of the battlefield, the heavy cavalry, with armored knights hunched behind stout lances and thick shields, slammed into their line straight on.

Frostclaws flew, with bloody feathers drifting down to mark their flights.

Lances transfixed the creatures and were abandoned. Swords came to hand, hewing and chopping. One valiant Aurolani warrior raised his unit’s standard to rally his comrades, but two Alcidese Iron Horse cut him down and brought then ine-skull banner back with them to great shouts from the rest of her army.

The Iron Horse continued their charge and screened the Murosans, letting them retreat. Some of the draconetteers in the Aurolani center shot, but at that range their attacks were little more effective than the long bowshots by the light cavalry. Alexia’s light infantry surged forward in the wake of the charge, finishing off what was left of the Aurolani cavalry. Off to the right, the light cavalry reformed forward of the swamp line, ready to play the harassment game once more, while the Iron Horse trotted back around to take their position again.

After less than an hour of battle, the Aurolani had lost one cavalry wing, she’d lost less than five percent of her cavalry, and the skycasters had not been used at all. Because of their lack of discipline, the Aurolani troops had literally been decimated.

Alyx nodded to the bugler, who blew a holding order. The waiting began. Tythsai could clearly see that Alexia was not going to advance and fall into her trap. The skycasters would have been effective against slow-moving troops, but not cavalry—not unless the battlefield was arranged such that a charge had to be channeled into a killing zone where the skycasters could be preaimed and ready to go. Alexia’s study of Saporicia indicated there were only a couple of places where that sort of thing was possible—the closest one being the pass at Fronosa. If Tythsai advanced, she risked having her troops mauled by Alexia’s. The southern force had more people, and they were better disciplined. Alexia had enough troops that she could entirely envelop the Aurolani formation. Such an overwhelming victory would be expensive in terms of casualties, since no quarter would be asked or given. It would also risk the capture of the skycasters and regardless of what happened with dragonels in Okrannel, Alexia was pretty certain thesullanciridid not want to lose those weapons.

The sound of drums on the other side shifted and the light infantry divisions began to move back. Alexia looked at her bugler. “Call our cavalry back, please.” He did as she bid him, and her light cavalry retreated through the marshes. The Murosans quitted the field last and the army cheered them mightily. The battle might be being fought in Saporicia, but everyone in the force felt the Murosans deserved to draw blood, and were happy they had.

They’d also left people on the battlefield. Those bodies would be recovered, life masks would be carefully borne away, friends would be mourned, then the warriors would prepare to march out to the next battlefield.

Alexia rode back toward the center and her pavilion. Arimtara took the reins of her horse as she dismounted. The dragon studied her for a moment, then half

lidded her eyes.

“You could have let me become my true self and incinerate great chunks of

that force.“

“I could have, but I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

Alexia pointed to the troops arrayed in the field. “Two reasons. The first is that I want to use you to the best advantage, and that will come later. I don’t know when, but you have the ability to turn the tide of a battle. Moreover, you can oppose a dragon, and I don’t want Chytrine to send one against us too early. I want you to surprise her.

“The primary reason, however, is because the army needs to feel unified. This was not much of a battle, but everyone did what they were supposed to do. They all felt the fear, they all feel the exaltation of victory, and they all have lost friends. If you had destroyed that host, it would not have beentheirvictory, it would have been yours, and they’d not be coming together the way I will need them to if we are to win in the final battle.”

Arimtara nodded, then cocked her head to the side. “You were clever enough to plan a battle that cost them cavalry. Could you not have planned further and cost them more?”

“Possibly, but it would have cost me heavily.” The princess looked across the battlefield toward where Tythsai’s banner was shrinking away. “Right now she is thinking that I am tricky and a coward, since nothing I did here had the scent of boldness. I could have had the light cavalry go after her flanks again and again, but I was content to let her retreat. She will always expect that I will let her disengage, which is good, because the one time I don’t, the one time I press forward, this army will be through her force faster than grass through a goose. If I’m going to destroy that army, I need its leader thinking I’ll never do anything of the kind. Once she is convinced of that, we’ll kill her again.”