Mary Herbert - Valorian

“I am Valorian, lord chieftain of the Clan. I demand the surrender of your legion immediately.” He watched the muscles tighten in the general’s neck and jaw and saw the play of emotions over his face. He knew what the man was thinking. The XIIth Legion had never surrendered in its history. To do so now against an inferior force would be a disgrace. Death would almost be better than such a dishonor.

But while the general hesitated, his companion did not.

Antonine wrenched his horse around to face Valorian and with a sharp, frightened gesture, threw his sword to the ground. “Surrender, General Sarjas. We have no choice!” he croaked.

Sarjas visibly winced, as if the younger man had struck him, then bitterly he threw his sword down, too.

The chieftain bowed slightly to Sarjas and jabbed a finger at one of the general’s aides, who was carrying a signal horn. “Sound the surrender. Call them in,” he ordered.

Loud and final sounded the unfamiliar notes of the surrender call, soaring up and down the valley like a dirge. The men of the XIIth Legion didn’t recognize it at first, but then, in twos and threes, the soldiers stopped in their places and unhappily laid down their arms.

For the first time in its history, the Clan had brought one of the emperor’s legions to its knees.

A hideous cackle of glee from the gorthling startled everyone, including Valorian, who had forgotten it was there. It crawled out onto his shoulder again and curled its lips in a sneer. The Tarnish officers stared in revulsion at the ugly little creature and in bald amazement at the man who controlled such a thing.

“What are you waiting for?” the gorthling hissed in Valorian’s ear. “Destroy them! Sear them to ashes! They don’t deserve to live after what they did to your people.” The insidious voice touched the rawest nerve in Valorian’s self-control. Suddenly he wanted to blast the Tarns where they stood, to slaughter every single man as they had tried to do to the Clan. It was the least they deserved for the eighty years of misery, poverty, and murder they had inflicted on his people-and for this last atrocity, the unprovoked attack on an inoffensive caravan. His hatred, contained for so many years, boiled up like acid, and the tension became a visible pain on his face.

“Do it!” prodded the gorthling again. “It would be so easy.

You have the power. Kill them all!” Imperceptively Valorian’s hand began to lift; the magic seethed within him. He saw the faces of the officers in front of him staring at him in increasing alarm and fear. He saw the legionnaires gathering nearby, laying down their weapons. It would be so easy to kill every one of them. All he had to do was. . .

The gorthling chuckled in anticipation.

Suddenly Valorian’s hand clamped down on his knee. He shoved his sword back in the scabbard, and with every ounce of his willpower forced his hatred deep down out of sight in the most hidden chambers of his heart. How could he even think of abusing Amara’s gift by slaughtering men who had already surrendered? Or breaking his vow before his people? It would have been a heinous thing to do, something better suited to a gorthling.

He cast a speculative look at the little beast on his shoulder. Valorian knew he wasn’t so easily overcome by his own emotions. Could this creature somehow be influencing his thoughts? If that was so, he thought, he had better get rid of it as soon as possible.

“Keep quiet,” he told the gorthling harshly. It subsided temporarily and hid behind Valorian’s back again.

The chieftain spoke another command, and the clansmen around the Tarnish prisoners lowered their swords. Hunnul walked over to the small group where Lord Valorian relieved the standard bearer of the XIIth Legion’s gilded eagle standard. He turned to face the Clan and held the tall standard high to catch the afternoon sun.

A loud cheer rose from the gathered Clan. It grew louder as the people began to realize that the danger from the Tarns was over and, in a stunning victory that boggled the imagination, the soldiers had become their prisoners.

General Sarjas glanced at the noisy caravan and back to the silent ranks of warriors behind the Clan chieftain. His brows knotted together. “Lord Valorian,” he finally asked, puzzled, “where were your other men hiding? We saw no sign of another troop of warriors before the battle.”

Valorian’s face slowly broke open in a wide grin. With a dramatic snap of his fingers and a muttered command, the images of the warriors vanished, leaving the chieftain with only his battered, smiling rear guard. “What men?” he asked.

The Tarns stared, unbelieving, at the empty field. General Sarjas swallowed hard. How was he going to explain this to the emperor?

Valorian’s grin faded and he turned brusque. It was time to get back to the Clan. “General, we are going to Ramtharin Plains as we had planned. If you leave your weapons and horses here, you and your men may leave I peacefully. If you do not, we will keep this man as a hostage,” and he pointed to Antonine. He still wasn’t certain who the soft-looking young official was, but he recognized the man’s ultimate authority over Sarjas.

The commander hesitated. To abandon their weapons and horses to the clanspeople was almost more than he could bear, but once again Antonine stepped in. “Do it, Sarjas! I’ll buy you new horses when we get out of this!”

Sarjas’s rough-hewn face was abruptly frozen by a powerful self-control. Tight-lipped, he dismounted and gestured to his men to do likewise. A Clan warrior came forward to take the reins of the seven horses.

Valorian was satisfied. He turned to Karez nearby and said, “Make sure the word is spread. Have them leave their weapons here and picket their horses by the river. They can take their dead and wounded if they like.”

Karez nodded, rather surprised and pleased that Valorian would give him such an important task.

Then the chieftain turned back to the legion general and saluted him. “It is on your honor that the legion obeys the terms of surrender. Good day, sir.”

Sarjas returned his salute reluctantly, but with a measure of respect in the crispness of his motion. .

At Valorian’s touch, Hunnul trotted back across the field of grass toward the caravan. The chieftain groaned when he finally took a good look at the mass of carts, wagons, people, and animals. It was a shambles. There was so much to do he hardly knew where to begin. Wagons were tipped over, damaged, or jammed together; horses ran loose everywhere, and the herds of livestock were scattered all over the fields and slopes. Gear and belongings were strewn over the ground. People were milling around in confusion, and frantic children and dogs were scampering underfoot.

Worst of all were the dead and wounded lying scattered along the trail, in the grass, and among the wagons. Many of them were clanspeople, but they had defended themselves fiercely against the Tarns, leaving quite a few soldiers among the numbers of the dead. They would all have to be dealt with: the dead buried and the wounded tended. Valorian could see it was going to be a long and difficult task to get the Clan back on its feet.

He began at the first group of people he reached, where he found the survivors of the vanguard trying to help the wounded around them. The retreating Tarns had actually saved the remnants of the vanguard when they rushed through the head of the caravan by throwing the remaining Tarnish forces into chaos and distracting the vanguard’s attackers.

A jolt of relief hit Valorian when he saw Aiden sitting on a rock, feebly wrapping a rag around a bad slash on his leg. “Thank the gods,” Valorian muttered fervently. His parents would have to wait awhile longer to see either one of them in the realm of the dead. He slid off Hunnul to help.