S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

“Tired from the last attack, my Hirzg, but we’re ready,” the u’teni answered. A small smile curled his lips under his beard. “Those Numetodo-tainted fools will be rather more exhausted than us, I would think.”

Jan chuckled. “Starkkapitan?”

“Their troops are badly positioned, my Hirzg,” ca’Linnett said. “It’s difficult to tell in this damned fog, but I don’t think the lines are deep. They’re too far out from the trees and the river will hem them in further. Let the war-teni and archers take as many as they can, and concentrate on the middle of the line along the Avi. I’ll loose the chevarittai there.”

He pointed north of the Avi, where the trees grew thickest. “They can move them into position while the war-teni attack. Then we’ll drive our infantry straight at where we’ve weakened them-down the Avi-while the Red Lancers take the wing. Drive hard enough and fast enough, and we might still make the city gates before sunset. If ca’Rudka or the Kraljiki have any sense at all, they won’t try to hold the entire North Bank of the city; they’ll pull back near the ponticas.”

“Allesandra?” he asked his daughter, seated in front of him. She tilted her head back to look up at him.

“Can I watch from here, Vatarh, where I can see it all?”

He tousled her curls. “We both will,” he told her. “Starkkapitan, I leave it to you. Send my attendants and pages to me. U’Teni cu’Kohnle, you may start the attack when your war-teni are ready.”

Ca’Linnett and cu’Kohnle bowed low and rushed away. Calls went out along the lines, horns blared and flags waved, and the Firenzcian line spread out slowly to either side of the road. Half a turn of the glass later, they heard the boom and thunder of fire-spells arcing out from just behind the front of the line, followed by the hissing of flights of arrows. The sputtering, roaring glares-a full dozen of them-traced smoky lines over the intervening yards between the armies. Jan watched them, waiting to see if the defensive spells of the Nessantico war-teni would take some of them, but they continued on without resistance, and the men shouted in triumph as the fireballs crashed into the opposing lines, tearing great holes through them. They could hear shrieks of alarm and pain, but except where the fireballs crashed into them, the Nessantico lines held.

“Vatarh?”

The war-teni loosed another barrage, larger than the first, and these also streamed unchallenged across the field to plow into the ranks on the other side. More men fell. The screams redoubled, but other men in yellow and blue slid into the gap. Jan frowned; the opposing war-teni might have been sapped, but he doubted that they had no ability left to counter the spells. Why were they waiting, when their people were dying? This was slaughter, not battle. He wondered how they could possibly hold. .

“Vatarh!”

As a third volley of fire-spells sizzled across the landscape, Jan glanced down at Allesandra. “What, little bird?”

“ Look at them, Vatarh,” she said. “Really look at them. The ones next to where our spell-fire strikes; they’re not moving. Not at all.”

As the next wave of destructive suns raced over the field, he did watch-not to where they struck but to the side. It was difficult to see through the smoke and fog, through the gathering dark under thicken-ing clouds, but he saw that Allesandra was right. There was an unnatural stiffness to the soldiers alongside the blasts of the war-teni. They didn’t flinch, didn’t cower, didn’t run. They stood upright, always looking forward, their heads not turning at all as their companions were consumed in fire.

The spell-fire ripped through them as if they were stones thrown through a painted canvas.

“We’ve been deceived. .” he breathed, but it was already too late.

The ranks of enemy Garde Civile shredded away entirely, like smoke driven by a gale. Fire-spells came now from the Numetodo: not from the ghostly ranks before them, but from the southern flank, fire-spells raking the Firenzcian lines. Not far distant came the clashing of arms and the pounding of hooves, and Jan saw the Nessantico chevarittai leading a charge, soldiers in yellow and blue pouring in from the river side of the Avi. “There!” he shouted to his aides, pointing. “Sound the horns! Quickly!”

As the horns began to shriek, as the battle clamor rose below him, he set Allesandra down from his horse. “Go back to the Archigos,” he told her. “Hurry! You, Page, take her!”

He drew sword then, without looking back, and kicked his destrier into motion.

Karl ci’Vliomani

Karl felt Ana shivering with the effort and exhaustion. “Let it go,” he told her. “You can let it go now. .” With a gasp and cry, Ana collapsed into his arms. He held her tightly. Around her, the ground was littered with the prone bodies of men and women in green robes-those who had helped her, who had taken the Ilmodo and fed it to her to create the illusion she’d woven.

He’d seen nothing like this, ever before. He hadn’t even realized it was possible. He suspected Ana hadn’t either.

“Now,” Karl called to the remaining war-teni. “Start the attack!”

He heard the quick chanting, and false suns bloomed above them to go shrieking off toward the Firenzcians. Around them, the Garde Civile gave a whooping cry and surged forward. A knot of chevarittai pounded up the Avi on their destriers, calling out a challenge to the Firenzcian chevarittai. As the hiss and boom of war-fire subsided, the clamor of steel on steel began to rise.

“Karl?” Ana whispered. Her eyes were closed. “Did it work?”

“It did,” he told her. “I don’t know how, but it worked.”

“Good. .” The word was mostly a sigh. “I need to sleep. .”

“Sleep, then. You deserve it.” He brushed the hair back from her head and kissed her forehead, laying her down on the ground. Another flurry of war-fire erupted above them to go shrieking off toward the Firenzcian line, lighting the meadow in a furious yellow glare, but it would be the last, he saw: both the war-teni and the Numetodo were exhausted. They would all need time to recover; the battle would be decided by steel now, not spells.

Karl motioned to Kenne. “Take care of your Archigos,” he said. “I need to go to the commandant.”

He brushed Ana’s cheek a last time and swung up on the horse that one of the e’teni was holding. As he rode away, he thought of what he’d seen, still marveling.

“I need all of you to do the Opening chant,” Ana had said, gathering several of the e’ and o’teni from the Archigos’ Temple around her while the war-teni and Karl’s fellow Numetodo watched. “Just as you were all taught in your first lessons: open yourself to the Ilmodo but don’t shape it. That’s all you need to do. Now!”

They’d done as she asked, as Ana chanted herself. Karl could feel the power rising around them. He thought he could almost see it, like a mist caught in the side of his gaze that vanished if he tried to look directly at it.

Several of the teni cried out as Ana continued to chant, as she gathered the power they’d opened to herself. “No!” she called to them. “Leave the Ilmodo open. Let me take it from you. .”

And she did. Already, they could see the illusion forming out in the fields and across the Avi in front of them: ghostly men in the garb of the Garde Civile, wreathed in fog and mist that the freshening wind didn’t touch, facing out toward where the Firenzcian army would appear. They stood there: motionless, waiting.

He could see Ana: her hands and lips moving as she controlled the spell she wove, the words lost in the cry of surprise that rose from all those around.