Wine of the Gods 03: The Black Goats (45 page)

"No. Just good leaders." Jin studied the smoke. it was spreading now, stretching out to cover the horizon, and closing in. "All right, get the men up. Since we haven't been blown up, I think we'd best get back to the fort."

He quick marched them around
the flats, and then up the steepest climb to the fort, in the interests of getting there quickly. The dark clouds had spread to cover most of the sky, and a dry snow of grey flakes was sifting down from above.

The women had already returned, and they seemed relieved to have their men back.

Jin dismissed the troops, and stationed a minimal guard with short rotations.

"You knew this was going to happen?" Cina joined him in the mess hall.

"I suspected, and it made me a bit nervous. No need for the exercise today, sorry, troops!"

Cina snickered. "I'm not sorry, I found some really pretty material."

Mev cackled as she walked by. The five older women had assigned themselves to a building each and were keeping them clean. Rumors that they'd paddled some harem girls' lazy asses and made them do the men's laundry was something he was ignoring. Everyone except a few of the harem girls seemed to be happy, and that was enough for now.

The mess hall quivered and dishes clinked.

"The lady in the village I was talking too, she said that quakes were common during the first part of an eruption, and then the volcano would settle down and you just had to watch where the lava flows were going." Cina shivered a bit herself.

He nodded, and paced over to where he could have seen the mountain, if everything that direction weren't solid, impermeable black.  Jin bit his lip and wavered, and finally hitched up the cart and drove, with two volunteers, to the junction of their road and the road to the mountain. A good long look at the ground at a stream crossing showed the top prints all toward the mountain, and no later ones returning. He chewed his lip more, and finally drove up the mountain to the place they had been ordered to not cross.

"Do you really think they could have been injured, sir?" Private Bickel tried to peer through the gloom, and pulled his handkerchief over his nose.

Jin shrugged. "I don't know, this just seems to be a prudent thing to do."

"Indeed."

He started and turned, recognizing the voice immediately. "Sir!" he gulped, "Do you need assistance, sir?"

Orgaphos chuckled drily. "Yes, as it happens the volcano was rather closer to erupting than I realized." He limped out of the gloom, Oran and Oundu followed, carrying Neet between them.

"We would appreciate a ride down to the village."

"The fifth's fort is nearer, if you wish to get out of this." Jin jumped to take Neet's weight and help get him into the wagon. He swallowed as he saw the burns down the wizard's back.

"No. The village."

Jin made it as quick a trip as he could, hating what he was doing to the two mares, making them breathe heavily in this foul atmosphere.

In the v
illage, more hands appeared to take the wounded wizard away, and Jin was dismissed. He took the return trip slowly, with many rests for the horses.

He dismissed the men and groomed the horses himself in the small stable. Listening to their dry coughs.

Cina slipped in with a heaping bowl.

"We heard you were worried about the horses, so Mev cooked this up for them. Steamed grain, mostly, with a little
bit of what she calls magic wine."

"Thanks, yeah, dusty grain is the last thing they need. I hope I can keep the men in barracks until this clears." He split the mash between the horses, then walked back to his office.

"Any sign of movement to the west?" he asked the corporal.

"No, sir."
the corporal shifted uneasily, "Is it true one of the Wizards is dying?"

"They have very strong healing spells." Jin said. "Certainly the . . . man. . . is badly injured, but I would be surprised if he actually died."

"Oh." the corporal nodded. "I hadn't thought about it that way. Aye. Likely he'll live."

He did.

And so, when the Sea King's marines finally shifted across the inland farms, they faced them with four wizards.

Admiral Sevani watched the ash cloud rising from the volcano, and frowned.

Bran wondered if he was finally going to admit that there was a problem.

"We saw perhaps a company of men drilling, this, while it won't be allowed, is a very minor incursion, and hardly a matter for an outside polity to be concerned with. I think we'll head back west. My captains will be able to tell me what the volcano is doing, and how the people of Gendo are faring."

Nil curled a lip. "The one company you've seen isn't all there are. We should detour north and . . . "

"Enough of this. It is time for you lot to be off the island and away. I haven't time for your politics and these lame attempts to create a situation you can help us with. We will not be obligated to you."

He led his marines straight across the eastern fields. They were halfway across, perhaps five miles from cover in either direction when they spotted the cavalry. And were spotted by the cavalry.

The Admiral eyed the massed riders and admitted that they had a problem. They set a quick march for the nearest patch of woods. Rufi sent half his guards ahead at a run to cut poles.

The Sea Kings' Marines were not used to facing cavalry charges. Rufi's guards' bows were the only ones in the group, and they had only had ten of them. They took out a few riders, but couldn't break the charge. Nil and Lefty threw fireballs and took out three more, but the magic was painfully short range. They drew swords and backed into the guards' formation as the mostly intact charge hit.

Bran watched in horri
fied fascination how poorly the marines faired, until the first charge was slowed by the sheer mass of the marines and the horses hamstrung, and the riders pulled down and killed. It was incredibly messy. About three-fourths of the cavalry troop got out of the scrum to form up for another charge.

The marines picked up their wounded and kep
t backing toward the wood. The guards that had been sent ahead emerged dragging fifteen foot, pointed poles. A second group of riders circled to try and cut them off, but Rufi and the rest of the guards reached them first. And Rufi's escort was trained, very well trained.

When the cavalry charged,
the colonel's men stepped out to face them, and gave the Marines a lesson in how to break a charge. Unfortunately with only eighteen pikes, they hadn't done much better than the Marines, but they'd done it with only one man killed.

The survivors of both cavalry troops looked to be forming up together for another charge.

The Sheep Man was circulating through both groups with a wine bottle, healing. Bran didn't notice any orgies starting up, and concluded that this was a different batch of wine. Thank the old gods.

The c
olonel was muttering something about how he wished the admiral had kept the witches close. Magic. They needed Magic. Nil shook his head. "They know I'm here, let the witches be a surprise. I'm certainly not showing everything I can do."

Oscar eyed him. "Bran? What can you do? I'll try to copy it, but you just ignore me and do it right, yourself."

Bran gulped. All his life the mages had trained him, drilled him. Always in a Compass. But it was supposed to work alone as well. Selano had shown him some methods.

Wind. Start with wind. He dipped his bare fingers into a nick on his left shoulder, then swiped them along his sword blade. He bent over an injured cavalry man, dipped his fingers in the living blood of an enemy. The spell of winds . . . he whispered and gestured, and as the Marines set up to face a charge of the combined companies, he flicked his hands. A brisk wind picked up dust and blew it in the cavalry's face. Harder. More wind. He dipped left and right forefingers in the enemy's blood, found the rhythm of the spell and as the horses charged forward, a stinging blast of wind-born sand and dirt blinded the riders. The officers screamed contradicting orders, with half the charge continuing and half stopping. This time the fight was less one sided. The crude pikes broke the center of the charge, and the marines who hadn't faced the charge swung around to flank the milling riders. The mounted men got up a half speed charge that got a quarter of them
out
of the closing circle. The rest were pulled down and killed.

The c
olonel slapped his shoulder. "Been taking lessons from Selano?"

Bran staggered, feeling a bit faint. "Yes, sir.
And from the Ash Compass all my life. Never tried anything like that on my own before."

The Sheep Man walked over grinning through a splash of blood. "Definitely taking after your grandfather, Master Bran. That looked a bit like the work of a Storm Mage."

The colonel was looking to the remnants of the cavalry. "They're retreating." He looked over at the admiral.

Bran found himself sitting on the ground.

The Sheep Man thumped his shoulder. "Relax. If we can find you a stream, you can try something again, but you need a whole bunch of lessons in raising power by yourself. I don't know enough about Mages to even give hints."

"Can he do that again?" The Admiral was frowning down at him. "Is he a wizard, too?"

"No, he is a very young and very inexperienced mage." The colonel looked behind them. "Now, should we pursue a presumed advantage?"

The Admiral shook his head. "No, we should send for more marines. I don't know how they got this many people landed and their ships away before we spotted them, but there's no need to throw lives away when I can call up as many ships and marines as we need. I have a hundred and fifty marines on the ships, with them I can at least hold the island."

Lefty, whom Rufi had left in charge of the witches’ encampment, met them with a detachment of Marines.

They assisted the marines too badly wounded for the wine to heal quickly and re
treated to the western volcano.

Two days later, with the addition of a hundred and fifty Cove Island marines and seven witches, they headed east again, to confront the wizards and their forces.

This time the marines carried pikes, and Rufi and his guards drilled them in the basics. The cavalry trotted out to meet them, and made a few passes.

"Stopping us, so their infantry has enough time to get here." Rufi  looked over at Nil. "Any wizards?"

"The wizards are up there, getting used to their volcano, tapping its power. I need to get up there, right now."

"Need help?"

"Nope. Or at any rate, none that's available. I should have brought Dydit. Lefty, stay here and assist Rufi. Stick to fireballs and slice, and remember what to do with a sword." He tossed his pack to Bran, then made a motion like slinging a cloak around himself and disappeared.

"We still have the witches." Rufi told Sevani.

"Interesting trick." The Admiral scowled. "Certainly, by all means let's put seven women with their little bows up against them." He studied the men starting to emerge from the forested hills. "Three centuries of Foot."

"Piss poor foot troops."
The colonel said. "I think they are going to throw their worst at us, see if they can take us out with three to one odds and save the rest of their cavalry, and their better troops."

"Are you going to meet them right, here, Admiral?" Curious asked. "Would you like a ditch and bank?"

The Admiral raised his eyebrows, "Why yes, I would. Three sides, please, so we can retreat if necessary."

***

Jin could call the reports of a sudden wind blowing things in the cavalry's faces a coincidence.

But
seeing the dirt heaving itself out of the ground and heaping itself up in a long defensive breast work with his own eyes was something else again. "All right troops, you saw that as well as I did. They've got magic on their side, just like we do. We're the Master's guard, we need to stay up here, on these slopes, and keep them from getting to the Wizards. Start your cuts on the trees, but wedge them, try not to drop them yet, in case the other centuries need to retreat this direction."
And the blithering idiots ought to be retreating now. General Inetricovski has to have more sense than to throw his men at a fortified position!

But the men marched out and faced the ditch and bank from just out of arrow range, and at a clang that rang over the entire spread
of soldiers, charged.

There were
about a hundred and fifty marines, and roughly twenty men in a uniform Jin recognized as a modification of the standard Western Uniform. The King's Own. He wasn't sure what to make of the women. Archers, but as the charge closed in, they backed off the bank and formed up into two groups of three . . .

"There are no more witches, damn it. There are no more witches." He heard himself speaking out loud, and clenched his jaw shut, as the ground peeled away, out from under the feet of a running group, and then clamped shut like a trap. It wasn't too deep. Three of the five men who had fallen, fought their way back out. But more pits were opening, and more men were being swallowed.

But most of the charge jumped down into the ditch, and started climbing the bank. The men were boosting each other, and concentrating on three areas of the bank, and making it over. With horrible casualties, but they opened holes and held them. The marines swarmed the breeches, and the cavalry charge from the left flank was in among them before they had time to do more than start to face them.

And now Jin saw the plan. They were targeting the women and the Westerners.

***

Rufi was cursing the wizards and the marines in equal parts, trying to protect the inexperienced Bran and Oscar on his right, while the experienced Dil covered his ass on the left.

He saw little flicks of wind, fire balls and a sudden watery fountain that turned solid ground into a quagmire. The cavalry charge started to collapse, even as it turned its aim toward the witches.

"Protect the women." he yelled, hoping enough of his men would hear and be in a position to obey, backing toward them himself, then lunging out quickly as a horse shoved through the line of marines in front of him
and exposed a vulnerable neck. Blood sprayed, the horse collapsed and the marines took care of the rider. Old Gods! There were not many marines still on their feet, but there were no more enemy coming over the bank.

"Back up to the bank." He roared. "Witches,
move
."

And thank the gods they were listening. A section of bank piled itself even higher, and the witches tucked themselves in close. The fight was so close and fast moving that they were reduced to trapping single fighters, and throwing rocks
—fast, accurately, and without actually touching them.

Curious raised her voice, "I can shield all of us, but we'll be trapped inside."

Lefty was up on the bank, looking at something. "They've got another century of foot forming up, and it looks an awful lot like yet another in reserve."

Rufi spotted the remains of the cavalry forming up. "We don't have much of a choice, here."
Lefty leaped down, ran his sword into the back of one of the soldiers, jerked it out and slashed at another. "Let's get as many of our wounded inside as we can." He leaped to grab a downed marine and pull him closer. The Guards made a concerted rush to back off a group of soldiers, then retreated, pulling wounded. A glassy
something
formed up on their heels.

Rufi cursed and rallied his men and the marines. They hacked their way through the enemy trapped inside the shield. And stared at the ones surrounding them.

Bran staggered over to Nil's pack. It was empty except for the bottle of wine. "Not much left. Anybody got any other wine? Anything drinkable?" The boy shook his head and looted water skins off the dead and filled his wine bottle. Rufi watched in bemusement as he circulated, giving the friendly wounded a sip. After which they were staggering to their feet and searching for their weapons.

"Damn. What is that stuff?" Dil muttered.

"Colonel, can we possibly decrease the area we have to protect?" Curious was looking strained.

"Right, everybody in closer, toss their people, dead or alive, out to the edge." A few minutes of shuffling bodies and the shield shrank.

Curious breathed a sigh of relief. "Waning Half, relax. Half Moons, can you hold it?"

"Yes. We have it." Particular spoke for the Triad.

As the older women sank down and sat right where they were, Curious nodded at Rufi. "We can keep it up until we starve to death. Or rest enough to do something a bit more violent." She looked thoughtfully out over the fields. "I've recently been learning about Fire."

"So it's all up to Nil? With two centuries of foot and whatever's left of the rest of them?" He shook his head and walked over to an ornately uniformed body. The Admiral. Still b
leeding. "Bran, here, quick." The boy dribbled wine into the unconscious man's mouth.

The marines gathered around hopefully, as
the admiral's breathing got deep enough to detect and the bleeding stopped.