11
As soon as the sun made its appearance the next morning, Feradac’s forces started making their way to the battlefield. Thousands of fighters arrayed before them, Tayron and Bathis maintained a grim determination specially designed for combat. Auxiliary cavalry or not, they had to assume their lives would depend on their skills as soon as the battle was joined. General Feradac’s staff and personal squadron of knights joined the breka cavalry led by Jaksen for the journey to the field.
Keeping their breka energetic, the cavalry and their guests led the animals on foot. Bathis had named his, with complete lack of imagination, Batbreka, but since Tayron hadn’t chosen a name for his yet, he couldn’t criticize. The heavy plate armor they were both stuffed into was irritating, and created an enforced clumsiness that prevented anyone from acting too heroic. Jaksen looked worst off in his armor, which, though more expensive and therefore lighter than that of the knights, made the lord look comical instead of threatening, his body more suited to the soft robes of nobility.
“Lord Jaksen,” Feradac said, leading his own white breka, “you look like you’ll keel over if we make you march any distance in that can. Don’t bother to come up with a reply. Where’s the girl? I’d like a reporter to get a good, close look at battle. Forget it. Answer me this, though – how did you let Damial gather a force equal in number to my own? That’s at least sixteen thousand men. They don’t just appear overnight.”
“A mistake on my part, Feradac, I didn’t expect that Quenari had been preparing for so long, or that he could ever get such support. On the bright side, there is no way they can be trained at all – we would have noticed if even a thousand men was training in any corner of this country.”
“I’d certainly hope so. And no harm done – with the eight thousand on the trains and the five thousand that foul fool Repert is sending over from the east, we’ll have that healthy advantage you wanted. And even though you forced us to delay, we will still get to choose the time and place of our counterattack, which I would have figured impossible given a single competent general on the enemy side.”
“Then we can safely conclude that our enemy lacks any general that you would rate as competent.”
“How about knights? That’s your area, Jaksen, you know where every knight in the nation stands. How many does Damial have?”
“A hundred from the palace, which will be mounted on land creatures. A hundred more land cavalry and a hundred breka riders from the personal guard of the lords and other parties.”
“That’s what my reports said, but I couldn’t believe it,” Feradac scoffed. “How can they hope to oppose us with those numbers? We have double their airborne and eight times their land cavalry . . .”
“It’s the riflemen I worry about. Quenari has over three times our numbers there.”
Feradac grunted, but said nothing. Tayron was equipped with a rifle, currently stowed on his breka’s harness, but he didn’t think he would use it. At the academy, the new weapon’s advantages and disadvantages had been clearly studied, and Tayron could not abide by its most striking problem – the long reload time. With a rifle, reloading was a process; with the bow, it was more of a reflex. The rifle also remained a dangerous weapon for the wielder himself, occasionally blowing up in the user’s hands, whereas only an idiot could get injured in archery. Of course, Tayron had never shied from using explosives, which were far more volatile, so the dangers of the rifle had never been a concern for him. The inability to fire it quickly was the main problem, and because of it he sometimes had trouble considering a rifleman a special threat.
Flat fields crept by as they marched with their breka down the mildest of hills. Cropland stretched as far as the eye could see, except for a slight blemish where the city of Orina poked out. The city was now behind them, and the three vital tracks grew further apart. At the points where Quenari was expected to attack them, the space between the different train lines would take four hours of marching to cover. The goal was to push the enemy into the center, gathering all the forces together so that the king’s superior numbers could be brought to bear, to become the decisive factor.
The subtle changes in the wind and the blissful swaying of the crops defied the tension of the soldiers marching to war. With the rest of the world going about its everyday business, Tayron had a bout of claustrophobia, as if more room had to be made for the world going to the war. Bathis, ever producing more animated reactions, was enraged. When a farming family they passed didn’t even spare a glance at them or their brekas, the wily knight snapped.
“It’s not like there’s a war everyday! And to think, when I was a kid I’d have watched by the roadside just to see the breka. What’s the deal here? Who are these people? If mortal peril was coming their way, do you think they’d notice? Maybe we should try an experiment.”
“That’s enough Bathis,” Jaksen said.
Tayron chose to support Bathis’ case. “Why are they like that, though?”
Jaksen was clearly uncomfortable, grimacing without explaining. Feradac had moved safely ahead, out of conversational range. With a sharp look from the councilor, Tayron decided not to press the issue. Bathis couldn’t take a hint without metal to back it. “Good question, Tayron. These country folk are clearly subnormal. I blame our politicians for neglecting rural education. Not that I think it’d help, but at least if they got education we could rule it out as an explanation, leaving us with the simple fact that they’re degenerates.”
“Bathis!” Jaksen shouted, stunned.
“Unless you have a better theory about why they act like this?”
Jaksen left a prerequisite silence, and then said “a theory. I’ll tell you later.”
“Why later?”
“Morale.”
That turned out to be a perplexing enough answer to keep Bathis quiet. Nature itself continued to defy their bleak purpose. The sun climbed bright and cheery through blue skies spotted with fluffy white clouds. Birds were sent to sing their hearts out, as if daring the archers to take a shot at them.
“I’ve never seen a worse day for a battle,” Feradac groaned.
“Among the nobility on Quenari’s side,” said Jaksen, “are Uindau, protected by the god of birds, and four of the six nobles protected by a god of weather. The gods, of course, know what we’re doing even if their charges don’t. They won’t do much against us, though – not while we fight for the king. Otherwise, we’d already be facing torrential downpour.”
“Brilliant,” the general said without a trace of enthusiasm.
Before any other comments could be voiced, a messenger came to Feradac, saluted, and said, “the attack on the center train has commenced. As you ordered, the men on that train are attempting to join with this force, but are taking heavy casualties. The train operator betrayed the men to Lord Damial.”
Feradac nodded in understanding. “Good work. Send a message to the mage Havelin, currently residing in the baggage ranks. Tell him that I will need his services. Tell him about the train operator’s betrayal.”
Once the messenger was out of earshot, Jaksen targeted the general. “What’s this about a mage?”
Feradac laughed heartily, stroking his beard. “Yes, that was a good one. You see, Havelin hates underhandedness. His hobby is exposing fraud and cheating, and he’s obsessed about the whole thing. I told him that Damial was a sneaky one, and the last person he’d want to see become king, to get him to support us. He doubted me, so I made a deal with him – if Damial used devious methods beyond the average trickery in war in this, the very first battle, then he would use his magical powers to help me communicate with the forces with speed equal to that of the telegraph so that we wouldn’t have to rely on slow messengers running all over the field. Enticing people to betray their masters, directly causing hundreds of deaths, will be enough to bring Havelin over to the cause, once he is satisfied the messenger is telling the truth.”
“You did what?” Jaksen said, feeling like he’d never take a safe breath again. “You brought a mage into this war?”
“Their arrogant aloofness had to end sometime. Best that it benefits us at this time, when the nation’s at stake.”
“But now Quenari can use this to convince mages to join his side.”
“And you can use it to get some to fight for the king. If it’s necessary after this battle, of course.”
“I know a few high mages who will be exceptionally angry once they find out.”
“And I know many soldiers that’ll be alive because of it, though they might never find out. Priorities, Jaksen. Let the mages throw tantrums if they like – I’m sure you can make them come around. It’s not like I’m making Havelin throw fireballs.”
Quickly, the news from the other two trains arrived, and there were no defections in those cases, with the troops fleeing in full force from the fight to join Feradac’s main army, now divided in two by the center track. Units started arriving from the trains and the battle was on.
“I have to go,” Feradac said to Jaksen, and he left with his staff to a more prominent position. Jaksen brought his auxiliary cavalry to the flank behind the main breka group, which was already airborne.
Grassy fields, rolling hills, and scattered trees stood before the army, ensuring that terrain would not be a major consideration. Tayron was thankful that this land, probably claimed by the railroads, was void of crop growers. The idea that, in the middle of a battle, civilians would calmly continue their work without so much as a casual glance at the corpses being flung around them sent shivers down the knight’s spine. He was itching to know what those farmers had been thinking, and the area of his mind assigned to morbid curiosity came up with gruesome theories and scenarios, including one where a farmer’s body, decapitated in the midst of battle, continued to work. That image shut down Tayron’s ability to contemplate about the farmers, leaving him to survey the armies coming into contact with each other.
Lord Jaksen had allowed his unit to halt atop a small bare mound. It afforded only a view of Feradac’s streaming army, its infantry center bounding forward, land cavalry hanging back for the surprise charge, and archers already firing at the no man’s land ahead. A dozen cannons were rolling persistently forward right in front of their hill, digging scars into the grassland, and a short regiment of riflemen flanked the artillery progression, leaving no trace of its passage. Somewhere in front was the enemy, but not a speck of hostile cloth came to light yet.
“They must be there, we just can’t see them,” Jaksen mumbled, “otherwise the archers wouldn’t be firing. Tayron, Bathis, why don’t we hover up for a moment to take a look.”
The knights nodded as the councilor ordered the rest of the riders, about fifty knights in total, to stay on the ground. Tayron and Bathis mounted their breka for only the second time, but this time the danger was far more immediate, and their scouring of the area for threats demanded both greater meticulousness and urgency even though the open land once again made the job more manageable.
“There they are,” Jaksen said, pointing at the enemy troops on the horizon once they had reached a hovering height twice that of the hill. “Quenari has put his riflemen out front in three ranks, two loading while the other fires. Feradac has put ours on the flank, and uses four ranks since we’re still using older model rifles.” Tayron’s attention passively soaked in what the councilor was saying. “That’s one way we benefit by having archers – they can fire from behind the infantry, arcing the arrows up to attack an unseen enemy. Handheld guns have to be fired straight. We can also use fire arrows – Feradac is preparing to use them once our men from the trains are in.”
Jaksen was plainly commentating for the benefit of his bodyguards, who could not afford to examine the battle. The exhilaration of a good fight had injected some youth into his voice, augmenting the ringing quality that had always made it powerful. He might have been practiced at the behind-the-scenes palace intrigue, but there was no question that he preferred an open fight. That he was lording over the battle instead of fighting in it likely contributed to this preference, he admitted to himself. The gods themselves were sitting in much the same position he was in now, watching fate, which even divinities could exercise little control over, play out. Birds maintained a hushed silence now, though they would circle around watching until the carrion-eaters swept in. The sun hid respectably behind a cloud – actually the cloud was the one trying to keep the sun modest in this situation, Jaksen reminded himself, since no king had ever given a noble the protection of the sun god.
As the clamor of metal became its own beast, the sound gaining an echoing independence of the carnage out of which it was wrought, Jaksen contemplated the mysteries of the universe with a wistfulness that he liked to think purely his own. The great councilor had since early adulthood filled his father’s position in court with an intensity that forced the nobility off its comfortable complacency while the world changed around it. Only in his time had the issue of the new industrial order been fully addressed in front of the king. Already, in scattered locales, monuments were being built in his honor. Granted, many of them were built to curry favor, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that he was in a unique position, surpassed only by that of the king, to look on both humanity and the heavens and wonder about how it all worked.
Since childhood he had asked the question that every child asks – why did the gods listen to his nation’s nobility and king, but remained unknown to the other lands on this world? Now, in the twilight of his life, he realized he would die without knowing. Overlooking battles always got him thinking. In the past it had been battles with Rath’rainol or Kukos, but this time his people fought among themselves, as he had warned the old king when the heir died. Heart-wrenching to watch, the bloody battle before him forced Jaksen to think deeper.
“All right, I’ve seen enough,” Jaksen said, after a few more minutes of introspection, “we’ll peek up again after a little while.”
Landing, the two knights were free to discuss the conflict only slightly below them. “From the stuff I saw while scanning, it’s looking good for us,” Tayron said.
“Yeah. We can’t see the left flank from here, but our right is curling around them,” Bathis agreed, “those riflemen, though, whew!”
“What? I didn’t see – they were out of range, weren’t they?”
“I snuck a peek. No reason not to since you were being so fastidious about things. Anyway, they just mowed down our swordsmen when we charged. I mean, we must have lost a thousand before we reached them. Then, of course, they became goo on blades; they were totally defenseless. Some of them managed to escape, replaced by Quenari’s infantry. Interesting, though. Never seen how guns would work out in a real battle. I’m sure they’ll have lessons on this battle in the academy soon enough.”
“All this fuss about riflemen,” Tayron mumbled.”
“The wave of the future, Tayron,” Bathis declared. “Don’t underestimate progress.”
“Progress?”
Bathis smiled slyly. “If it’s new, it’s progress.”
“The wave of the future,” Jaksen echoed dreamily. Immersed again in his own thoughts, he compelled those around him into introspection. Just peering at the councilor’s face, Tayron decided not to ask the dozen questions he had been meaning to, and thought about the night before for the first time since it happened. He found that the memory made him more comforted than nervous, but he still debated whether he should have done it at all.
After dinner in the mess hall on the night before, Jaksen’s pack had decided to play card games with some of the troops, who were excited to have such a dignitary visit them. With the sun well away, Jaksen and Bathis were still playing, having won a great deal of money that the troops wanted back. It was a raucous time, and though Tayron stepped away from the game saying he couldn’t afford to waste any more money, the truth was that he was having trouble with the boisterousness of the gamers. Anni, having too little money to begin with by her own admission, had loomed over the players since the beginning, trying not to betray anyone’s card by the expression on her delicate face. From the frustrated looks on the players who tried to use her to their advantage, she discovered she possessed at least as good a game face as any of them did.
When Tayron joined her, she took the opportunity to become the reporter and took him aside into a quiet corner to ask questions about the upcoming battle, and his feelings towards Jaksen and the king.
She mercifully left the sappier questions for last. “Are you afraid of what might happen to you tomorrow? I mean, that you might not come back?”
“No, not really. We won’t be in the thick of it, after all.”
“What do you think a soldier who will be in the thick of it would be feeling right now?”
“Mostly they’ll try not to think. They might keep their mind on things they have to do after the fight’s over. A lot of them do that. They’ll deliberately make some arrangement – like a game, or a meeting with their family or something very normal like that – which they can look forward to after the battle, and keep their mind on it. Others will actually spend their time training. These guys here are the type who’ll trying not to think, and they’re focusing their minds on the game and having fun. Everybody has his own way.”
“And you, do you have a particular way, if you’re going to be facing real danger,” Anni asked, her eyes on his, with intent that went beyond mere reporting.
Tayron was about to answer “not really” when he caught the drift Anni’s eyes were giving him. This was an opportunity, and even though there was a loud part of his mind that said this wasn’t the time for it, he plunged in anyway. “I haven’t really thought about it . . . but if I come back from the battle alive, can I take you out to dinner while everyone else is partying? Just the two of us, I mean. I doubt it’d be much, just some army rations if we’re still here, but it would be something for me to look forward to.”
Anni blushed hard, and Tayron felt an upsurge of his boyish naïveté, wondering whether he had made a mistake. He didn’t really know Anni that well. True, he knew her better than any girl in the palace, and everything about her, from her focused and endearing attitude to her sleek, business-like form attracted him to her. The rest, he supposed, would be figured out in time. But what if he had misread her?
“Sure,” she relieved him of his fears with a flattered smile. “I’d look forward to that, too. Just make sure you come back, right? I’d feel really horrible if you . . .”
“I’ll come back,” he said assertively, “if only to have dinner with you, I’ll come back.”
He knew he had said the right thing there, even if it was a bit over-the-top. She was crimson, hurriedly saying “well, let me make this quite clear: this is not a date. We are simply doing each other mutual favors – you’ll have something to look forward to after the battle, and I’ll have a post-battle interview.”
“Why’re you always so intense about reporting? Can’t you have a conversation with somebody without it being an interview?” The bitterness in his voice was more concentrated than he expected it to be, and he hoped he hadn’t angered her seriously.
She stared charmingly as if he was being cute. “Why are you so intense about being a knight all the time? Same reason, whatever it is. Been so busy building a life, haven’t had time to bring other people into it. If everything works out for me, and I get settled, then maybe I’ll think about it. Anyway, I’d better get going. Good night.”
“Good night.” And in the morning they had waved to each other goodbye, and that had been that.
It might have just been his bad mood, but Bathis was getting sick of the sight of Tayron and Jaksen, both immersed in whatever trivial matters were bugging them while thousands died before them. He was about to lighten his mood by hurling an insult at someone convenient, maybe having another go at Tayron, when Jaksen shouted, “You two, look there, what do you see?”
His knights instantly followed his pointing finger to the ground a fair distance. There, seated on galloping groads, awkward but strong land beasts with bulging muscles, no grace, but big teeth and a propensity to pounce, were Lord Damial and a greatly augmented guard. The plump figure was unmistakable, but its identification was clinched by the standard painted on its shield, which matched the one on the flag carried by a knight on the groad beside the figure. Far enough to think it was safe, the unit was still only a flight away.
“What in the darkest pits is he doing here?” Bathis asked in amazement.
“Who cares?” Jaksen said. “Auxiliary cavalry, launch and form up in chevron ahead of me. Tayron, Bathis, you’re on my wings. Just make sure there aren’t any less fortunate surprises.”
Tayron’s first thought aloft was that it had to be a trick of some sort. His second thought as they sped full flight on their breka was that Jaksen had been right – the windshielding charms really needed improvement.
Jaksen had been wise enough not to spearhead the assault, but his gold and silver breka made him stand out strikingly. Damial’s men caught sight of the attack as soon as it was off the ground, and were pelting Jaksen’s men with gunfire. The chevron protected Jaksen from the weapons, but two riders were lost before the first enemy felt breka talon.
The leaders in the formation dropped explosives to soften the enemy numbers. The talons attack followed, with riders clearing foes on either side of their mount, which was busy ripping apart anything underneath. Damial and his knights fled as best they could, but their burly beasts were no match for the speed of the breka. Enemy troops nearby rushed to Damial’s aid, but Jaksen’s cavalry made short work of the guard, and the councilor himself was soon facing the enemy lord with his two knights at his sides.
No experience could have matched it – seeing the two enemies face each other on a true battlefield – except perhaps seeing Jaksen and Quenari face off. Tayron and Bathis looked on eagerly as the rest of the riders kept any enemies from intruding. Jaksen landed Frina alongside Damial’s groad and brought his sword to bear. The enemy lord only cowered, curling into a bulbous lump. Breathing became impossible, sweat fell to the grass like rain, bloody bodies encircled them, and Lord Jaksen thrust his sword down into Damial’s back.
But there was no resistance. No skin, no muscle, no bone. Jaksen’s sword stabbed thin air where Damial’s body should have been. Damial uncurled and, sitting up, laughed ethereally with head thrown backward. Though the laughter lingered a bit, he and his groad vanished.
“Mage!” Jaksen shouted in full fury.
“Yes!” the laughing voice said, itself fading now. The mage who created the illusion was not in sight, and had probably maintained a safe distance. Jaksen’s cavalry quickly found itself surrounded as enemy units that had been holding back to allow the trap to be sprung now swept in. Tayron and Bathis guarded the councilor with their lives, shouting at Jaksen to get airborne. No sooner had Frina’s wings started their beat than a shot from an unseen source tore through the left one. The breka bucked wildly, screaming at the top of its lungs. Jaksen dismounted and got clear a second before another shot put Frina out of his misery. He ended his life slumped on the field, blood draining from the hole in his neck.
Tayron held a hand out to Jaksen as the sniper continued to launch metal in the councilor’s vicinity. Jaksen had a leg on Tayron’s breka when another shot lodged itself in the creature’s head, forcing both of them off of it.
“Kill that gunner!” Jaksen hollered.
“Lord,” Bathis called out to Jaksen, “quickly!”
Jaksen crept over to Bathis’ breka and climbed on while Bathis fired his own rifle in the general direction the enemy fire had come from. “See you back at tent town, Tayron!” were Bathis’ parting words as he delivered the councilor to safety.
Tayron was alone with the dismounted dozens of the auxiliary cavalry; any breka riders still on their mounts had followed Jaksen out. He grabbed a shield from his own dead beast but, hacking into the closest enemy, realized it had been hopelessly bent from the creature’s fall and threw it aside. The knight had barely returned to his ready stance before a mace crushed the steel plate protecting his back. If not for the armor, he would have been paralyzed at best. Instead, he made use of the maceman’s light hide armor and thrust his finely sharpened sword right through. Tayron couldn’t tell whether these fighters were knights, but so far it didn’t seem like it. Then he turned to the next foe in his peripheral and got the surprise of his life.
“Hey, Tayron,” Yunas said, looking like a comic character in his armor, but with sword brought forward in expert fashion. “Fancy meeting you here, and all.” The youthful knight initiated the attack, swinging his weapon for Tayron’s neck.
Tayron countered and Yunas broke off. “You,” Tayron said without breath, “you’re working for. . .”
“Damial, yes, but let’s get on with it.” Yunas was as agile as his frame suggested. Even with cumbersome armor, he rolled, leaped up, and struck down in the time Tayron took to bring his sword to defend. Yunas disengaged again. Tayron guessed that the light knight wanted to avoid a battle of strength, so he initiated the next attack. His sword swiped through where Yunas’ head would have been if the knight hadn’t dodged. Fully intent on using his maneuverability to his advantage, the youthful knight wasted no time counterattacking. This time Tayron leaped away, and the blade slit his left arm at a joint in the armor. Blood trickled, but not with a fatal flow.
He couldn’t believe whom he was fighting, and every cell in his brain believed it was possible to reason with Yunas. While both knights took in some air, a feat since it was practically solid now, Yunas had the manic grin on his face known as the first sign of battle frenzy, and Tayron was not encouraged. He decided to go ahead anyway.
“Yunas, the king’s been crowned, why are you supporting Damial?”
“Better pay,” the other knight answered as he sprinted and launched himself into a flying kick. Getting out of the way, Tayron prepared to take advantage of any instability Yunas had on landing, but the knight landed firmly on both feet, as would be expected from the academy’s top graduate. “And Bathis liked Jaksen, so that was a bad sign.”
Tayron pounded toward Yunas, left arm feeling like microbes were chewing through it, and sword set for spearing. Crouching down and deflecting Tayron’s blade above his head, Yunas threw his opponent slightly off balance and followed up by lashing out at Tayron’s shins. Tayron’s right was safe, but his left was gashed to the bone so that the knight had difficulty standing.
“Sorry about the low blow, Tayron, just got carried away,” Yunas managed to say as another swordsman charged at him from behind. Yunas stepped aside gracefully, allowed the soldier to pass him, and then passed his sword through the man’s neck with brutal efficiency. “That academy training was really worth it, wasn’t it?”
Tayron was sick to the stomach. Sick everywhere, really, as he lost blood from his leg wound. Surprising himself, he looked for something to look forward to and remembered his interview with Anni. He didn’t get a chance to find out whether thinking about the planned dinner helped. Yunas, who had been momentarily occupied with other battles, turned back to glare at him.
“Come on. You’re not that badly hurt.”
“I don’t think I can fight you hopping, and I can’t use by left leg,” Tayron said, not entirely truthful. It pained him, and walking was out of the question, but if he kept it at just the correct position, he could put his weight on it for a moment.
“Too bad nobody else decided to finish you off. Guess they figured you for a dead duck. I’ll have to do it, then.”
Yunas, being trained in exactly how to use an enemy injury, slid to take Tayron’s right leg out and bring the knight to the ground. Tayron shifted his weight to his left, picked up his right as Yunas coursed under it, and set it on the ground again once the other knight slid clear, using it to pivot his body around. Yunas was slow to recover his stance, so Tayron hopped over and slammed his body down on the youthful knight, pinning him to the ground.
“You got me,” Yunas said, “but we’re not exactly fighting alone, you know.”
Tayron didn’t waste a moment thinking the knight was bluffing. Hearing the heavy steps approach behind him, he rolled away from Yunas and, as the attacker adjusted, he rose with his right leg and lunged forward. It took Tayron only a few seconds to dispatch his opponent, who had been wholly unskilled, but that had been long enough for Yunas to disappear.
Why the nearly victorious knight beat a hasty retreat, Tayron had no idea, but the new lease on life was fully appreciated. Having no choice, he stood his ground and fought the battles that came to him. Next to Yunas, these were no trouble even with the periodic blackouts. One knight showed his academy training in a clash, but it was worth only a minor irritation on Tayron’s finger in exchange for a sword thrust through the neck.
A general retreat was called before Tayron fainted from loss of blood, but the knight had no idea which side it was for. When his own side started pulling away from the fight, the sensation that he was in a nightmare set in. How could Feradac have lost with overwhelming force? He couldn’t think, barely keeping his eyes open. He hobbled from the spot he had fought from, having no hope of escaping once the rout began and the slow were hacked down to prevent them from fighting another day. Almost promising to Tayl that, if he was somehow saved and managed to have that dinner he had planned, he’d give up the whole war thing, Tayron caught himself in time, realizing his god probably wouldn’t look favorably on it. So, lacking even the divine recourse, he trudged along.
Hopping over the severely wounded was the worst, as they insisted on clutching him, often on his injured leg, with feverish pleas. Fading in and out of consciousness grew to be troublesome, too, and his body was telling him convincingly that it needed to lie down and rest for a long while. As the nearest friendlies became difficult to see and he decided that Yunas had only kept him alive for a more painful fate, Tayron got the second shock of the day.
“Hello again,” a form that sidled to his left greeted.
Glancing at the figure, Tayron realized his vision was blurred too badly to recognize it, but smiling he decided he didn’t really want to see who it was. The all-too-familiar voice was enough. “Come to finish me off? I might have to thank you for it,” he croaked.
“Nope,” Yunas said, propping Tayron’s left arm on his shoulder and bracing the injured knight, helping him along as they continued along the route to Feradac’s tent town.
“What’re you doing?”
“I just checked, and Damial won the battle outright – an overwhelming victory.”
“Congratulations.”
“So I decided to join your side.”
If Tayron had an ounce of energy to spare, he would have used it on an expression of surprise. Instead, he mutely waited for Yunas’ explanation.
“More than anything else, I guess, I like to be with a team that needs me, you know? I thought that, since Damial and all were the longshots, it’d be more fun to join them, but it turns out that you guys are more desperate, so here I am. I mean, look at you. I didn’t know we had mages on our side – sort of ruins the war, doesn’t it? Anyway, I’d rather try to beat one than have them take all the credit. That’ll be fun, huh? The ultimate contest – knight versus mage.”
“We might have mages on our side,” Tayron managed to say.
Yunas laughed. “Not in this fight you didn’t. And that means you’re at a disadvantage any way you look at it. Even if you eventually get some, it’ll only be an even match, and this fight’s already put you back a bit.”
“You . . .” Tayron started, fading into unconsciousness before he could complete the thought.
The next thing he heard was Yunas saying, “come on, drink up, or I’ll leave you here to rot.” A flask of water was held up to his mouth, which he opened slightly to let the fluid in. “Really, you’re not as tough as you look.” He was lying on the ground, and for a moment couldn’t feel his slashed leg. Propping himself up slowly, he saw it was bandaged heavily with rags. Yunas saw him staring at the makeshift tourniquet and said apologetically, “I just used whatever was around. Only trickles were coming out when I started helping you on your way, but when you fainted it started flooding the place. The rags are already soaked, so I don’t think it’s helping much – we really need to get you real help. I’ve carried you a bit from there, but I needed some rest. We’re about an hour’s walk from your camp, so we’ll reach after the sun gets down. We’d get there faster if you’d help out with the walking, but if you can’t I’ll understand.”
Tayron asked unconvincingly, “Why don’t you just leave me?”
“Thought I’d bring you as sort of a peace offering, you know, to prove my goodwill. I don’t want to be shot on sight, and your side’s probably mad enough right now to do it, too.”
“You could . . . just take my insignia, or one of the shields lying around.”
“Won’t like that will they? Not when they find out who I am and all. Nope, you’ll have to do,” the agile knight said, lifting Tayron up and starting them on their way again. “Come on, help out a bit,” he pleaded, and Tayron obeyed.
“So you just decided to switch sides, just like that?”
“Why not? Good fight, by the way. Think we can have a rematch sometime?”
The two knights struggled their way along the gravel road that would pass Orina to the east and pave its way right through Feradac’s encampment. Bloody patches stained what had been a clean road that morning. Conserving his strength, he let thoughts wash over him without analysis. The questions he had for Yunas had to wait for later, anyway, preferably for Jaksen’s presence. One thought took hold for a longer time than the rest – that Yunas might be leading him to Damial’s camp instead of Jaksen’s – but that was sheer lunacy. He knew the road, and would always have a connection with its stones, as any soldier does with the land of his battles.
In and out of reality the entire way, the trip took no time at all in Tayron’s mind. A disappeared sun, however, betrayed the truth of the matter, and by the time they reached the base’s security post the skies were starry.
“Okay, time to do your thing, Tayron,” Yunas said, with a hint of nervousness, as the guards halted them.
Tayron gave a bleary eye to the two guards, who looked exactly like the door guards at the palace in the haze of his mind. “Lord Jaksen will recognize me. Tell Lord Jaksen that Alevan Tayron made it and would like to talk to him.”
“Sir Tayron,” the guard on the left said, “Lord Jaksen is expecting you, right this way.”
“Hey! He needs medics. I can’t hold him up forever, you know,” Yunas objected before the guard could lead them any further. Without an answer, the guard took Yunas’ place and helped the injured knight stay upright.
“Now, who are you?” the guard asked.
Tayron hesitated, then said “he’s with me.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but that’s not good enough. If he’s an enemy mage he could have put a spell on you.”
“Ask Lord Jaksen if it’s good enough, but I’m not going with you if my friend here isn’t, and you can tell Lord Jaksen that you chose to leave me here unable to stand on my own two feet. I’d love to see what he does to you.”
Thinking better of it all, the guard obeyed Tayron and allowed a beaming Yunas to tag along.
“So . . . it’s working out well then? Being Jaksen’s bodyguard, I mean. Probably exciting and all. Of course, I’m comparing it to delivering messages around the palace, which turned out to be a joke. I mean, there were attacks, but they were all amateurish.”
“Yeah,” Tayron said to nothing in specific.
Led to Feradac’s tent, they entered gingerly, more to avoid disrupting any important business than to take care of Tayron. On entering, the injured knight saw Anni first, and on catching sight of the newcomers, she rushed to him, giving him a crushing hug that made him blush instantly and drew the attention of everyone.
Then, without any transition, she gave him a stern look that reminded him of his mother whenever he had done anything remotely dangerous. “How dare you make me feel so bad! I’d never have gotten over it. Rest of my life, there’s no way I could have made an appointment ever again.”
“Off of him now, Anni,” Bathis said, grinning to welcome Tayron back to the land of the living. “Us men have serious matters to discuss.” Anni pierced him with a scathing look that forced him to say “sorry, sorry, geez.”
“Where are you injured?” a kindly old man with flowing white hair and beard approached him and asked. He wore fighting gear, but had the unmistakable bearing and gaze of a mage. Tayron gestured to every afflicted area, in turn of severity. The mage took care of the leg first, and relief soared through the knight as the muscle was repaired, the wound magically closed, and a pill was given to him to destroy infecting bugs. Though still weak, Tayron could stand normally, and glowed at the mage in deepest gratitude as the man worked on his other injuries.
“My name is Havelin,” the mage introduced himself after doing all that he could.
“Alevan Tayron. Thank you for your help. It’s really amazing.”
“Healing’s my specialty, as it so happens, though to gain my rank a certain amount of breadth of ability is necessary.”
“You see, Havelin,” Feradac said from behind the map table as if continuing a conversation, “if you and your order had been more aware of the tides of time, this tragedy would never have happened and many good men would still be alive.”
“Oh, shut up, Feradac,” Havelin said casually. “As if you ever looked up from your tactical maps, talking to me about time. If you knew the first thing about time you’d know how ludicrous it is to be talking about it in terms of the tides. And as if you had any right to talk after using Tayron’s death as the basis of your argument for the past hour, making the girl there feel worse every minute.”
Jaksen stepped out of one of the tent’s many shadows and, giving Tayron a significant look, he said to the general and mage, “gentlemen, if you would grant me leave, I’d like to have a talk with my bodyguard.”
“As if you ever needed to ask anyone’s leave to do anything, Jaksen,” Havelin scoffed. Jaksen dismissed his comment and led his pack, exiting the tent.
Outside, Bathis and Yunas immediately reacquainted themselves.
“So, did you get a look at the guy who did that to Tayron?” Bathis inquired before Jaksen could start his questioning.
“No. I’d have needed a mirror for that,” Yunas said with no dash of pride absent from his voice.
Jaksen took this chance to interrupt. “So, you were with Quenari, then?”
“Yes, Lord Jaksen, but I would like to formally join you instead.”
“Why?”
Yunas shrugged. “You need me more.”
“And what guarantee will we have that you don’t switch sides again?”
“None.”
“But you can’t expect us to allow you to hear our plans when you are almost certain to betray us.”
“I won’t tell anybody anything you want to keep secrets.”
“How can we be sure?”
“I won’t tell you about their secrets,” Yunas grinned.
“But they could just torture you . . .”
“They can try. So can you,” Yunas answered, completely convincing.
Jaksen nodded. “Welcome to the team. Lucky that you didn’t do lasting damage to Tayron, or I’d have had to kill you. As it is, I hope we don’t give you reason to defect again.”
“You hope you do, ‘cause as long as you’ve got me, you’re losing.”
“Good point.”
The exchange caused Bathis’ jaw to drop, but Tayron was still too weak to care, continuing to wonder how he would deal with Yunas. They had both fought to kill, so he couldn’t fault Yunas for wounding him. It was a battle after all. And then Yunas had saved him, which technically meant that he owed the youthful knight, and the situation gave him a headache.
In sharp contrast to Bathis and Tayron, Anni was beside herself with fury. “How can you let him off like that,” she asked Jaksen, pointing an accusing finger at Yunas, “he almost killed Tayron.”
“I did save his life, though,” Yunas pleaded.
Persistently perturbed, Anni went on, “so his life doesn’t mean anything to you? Is it something you can just give and take away?”
Yunas responded meekly as only one with his youthful image could have. “I’m not like that.”
“Oh, really.”
“That’s enough, Anni,” Jaksen said. Tayron could barely make out his expression in the dim light, but the councilor’s face seemed to have new creases in it too deep to be concealed. The sharp change in the lord’s countenance since the last time they saw each other was alarming. “Tayron, I think we should fill you in on what’s happened.”
“We lost.”
Jaksen shifted his weight. “Well, yes. Not hopelessly, mind you, but it was fairly bad. Quenari had at least fifty mages, probably rogues, supporting him with every power they had to muster. I can’t tell you how many of our men came back with burns. I’ll admit that we were caught by surprise. I had suspected something was wrong – given the ease with which Quenari allowed us to determine everything. Feradac had an even better nose for a trap – and you can imagine how enraged he is, blaming everyone in sight, and when there’s no one in sight he blames himself. Not that he’s never lost before, but he hates it when his instincts were right and he didn’t listen to them. On top of the loss, a large number of our men – not the knights, mind you, the foot soldiers – decided to vent their fury on the farming people in the field during the retreat. They went far out of the way in order to pillage and . . . well, we haven’t made any friends today. Feradac is furious at how undisciplined they were, and feels like he’s been backed into a corner since he can’t afford to punish them. We need everybody we can to fight the next battle. ”
Just as Jaksen’s last words trailed off, the sound of footsteps made Tayron alert. Face hidden in the shroud of night, a young man approached the tent flanked by four guards and, addressing the congregation outside it, he said distinctly, “I am here to speak to Lord Jaksen and General Feradac on behalf of King Damial and Lord Quenari.”