S Farrell - A Magic of Dawn

“Alert the war-teni,” he said, patting his horse’s neck to calm it. “We’re going to need them. The attack’s starting.”

Jan, with several companies of Firenzcian troops and chevarittai, was on the western side of the River Infante just below the village of Certendi. The bridge over the river was at their backs. On the eastern side of the river, he could see the earthen ramparts they’d built; he had little hope that they would be able to keep the western bank for long. Starkkapitan ca’Damont was farther downriver, with the remainder of the Firenzcian army; Commandant ca’Talin, with the Holdings’ Garde Civile, at the southern end of their line, near where the Infante joined with the A’Sele.

“Tell your men they must hold,” Jan told the chevarittai. He yanked on his horse’s reins, riding up and down just between the lines of infantry and archers. “Hold!” he told them all. “We need to hold here.” As the war-storm stalked forward, the rumbling of the great cloud growing louder and more ominous, the war-teni came up to the front. He gestured to the green robes. “Here’s where you begin to earn your forgiveness,” he told them. “There-that storm must come down.”

The storm lurched nearer with every breath. The air smelled of the lightning strikes but not of rain. Ahead of the troops, in what had formerly been a field planted with wheat and grain, Jan had placed entrapments for the Tehuantin warriors: sharpened iron spikes set in the ground, covered pits whose bottoms were festooned with wooden stakes, packets of black sand that Varina and her Numetodo had enchanted so that they would explode when someone stepped near them. But the storm was marching across the field, not yet the Westlander warriors. The lightning strikes tore at the ground, uprooting the stakes and exposing the pits, tossing earth everywhere and causing the black sand packets to explode harmlessly.

Jan cursed at the war-teni. “Now!” he shouted at them. “Now!”

The war-teni began their chants, sending the energy of the Ilmodo surging outward toward the false storm. With each spell that was released, the storm began to fall apart, and underneath, they could see the Tehuantin warriors hidden below, marching steadily toward them. “Archers!” Jan shouted, and behind him, bows creaked under tension, then a thin flurry of arrows arched upward, curving back down to rain upon the Westlanders. They snapped up shields. Jan saw several of the warriors fall despite the protection, though wherever one fell, another took up his place. To the south, the war-storm loomed over the ranks of the Holdings, and Jan heard cries of pain and alarm as the lightning tore at the soldiers there. But the storm was already falling apart-the power behind it released. Now, he heard the guttural shouts of the Westlander spellcasters; fireballs shrieked like angry Moitidi in their direction. The war-teni chanted their counter-spells; Jan saw several of the fireballs explode harmlessly above, but others came through, slamming into the ranks and spewing their fiery, terrible destruction and gouging holes in the lines. His horse reared in terror. “Move the lines forward! Fill the gaps!” Jan shouted as he tried to calm his mount. The offiziers shouted directions; signal flags waved.

Then, with a great shout, the warriors charged, and there was little time for thought at all. Jan unsheathed his sword and kicked his horse forward. The chevarittai gave a cry of fury and followed him, the gardai infantry rising in a black-and-silver wave to meet the Westlanders.

They crashed together in a flurry of swords, spears, and pikes.

Jan had fought the legions of Tennshah. These Westlanders were equally ferocious as fighters, but they were also far more disciplined. He could hear their own offiziers calling out crisp orders in their language, and their spellcasters were embedded in their midst, wielding staffs that crackled and flared with spells. He remembered that much from the last time. Jan hacked with his sword at a sea of brown faces painted in red and black, and wherever one fell to him, another sprang up to take his place. They were being pushed slowly back, and still the Westlanders kept coming. Jan realized that they couldn’t hold here on this side of the river-if they were pushed much closer to the river, there could be no orderly retreat; they’d be slaughtered.

“Back!” he shouted. “To the bridge! To the bridge!”

The offiziers took up the cry; the flag-bearers waved their signal flags, the cornets shrilled their call. The Firenzcian troops, disciplined and precise as always, gave ground grudgingly and as they had been trained to do, allowing the archers and war-teni to cover their retreat and carrying away their wounded wherever possible.

The dead they left.

Here, there were two bridges crossing the Infante, a half-mile apart. The northern bridge, along the Avi a’Nostrosei, had already been destroyed. The one over the Avi a’Certendi still remained. The Infante could be forded but not easily, since its current was swift and there were deep pools that only the locals knew. The archers and war-teni were first over the bridge as the foot troops and chevarittai held back the Westlanders, the offiziers hurrying them across toward ramparts that had been erected on the far side. Jan stayed with his men, his armor blood-splattered and dented, the gray Firenzcian steel of his sword stained with gore, until the bridge was cleared and the archers had re-formed on the far side.

“Break away!” he called finally when he heard the horns from the far side of the Infante, and they rushed toward the bridge. Jan turned again there, keeping back the warriors who pursued them, howling. The ground was thick with bodies around him and the chevarittai. A spellcaster gestured with his stick, and the chevaritt alongside Jan went down with a scream and the smell of brimstone, but the spellcaster was cut down himself in the next moment. Most of the infantry was across. “Across!” Jan shouted. “Chevarittai, across!” They turned their horses; they fled. The hooves of the war-steeds pounded on the planks of the bridge, and Jan gestured to the war-teni who were waiting on the far side. The Tehuantin pursued, too closely. Already, the warriors were on the western end of the bridge.

“Now!” Jan cried as he reached ground on the far side. “Take it down!”

“Hirzg, not before we’re behind the ramparts,” someone said, and Jan stood up in his stirrups, furious, and roared.

“Take it down now!”

The war-teni chanted; fire began to crawl the wooden support beams. The flames licked at the paper that wrapped the black sand lashed there.

The explosions flung pieces of the bridge high in the air, huge, rough-cut beams tumbling end over end, the bricks and stones of the pilings slicing through the air. Warriors and gardai alike were struck. One of the bricks slammed into Jan, the impact unhorsing him. He heard his horse scream as well, an awful sound. As he fell, he saw the center of the bridge collapse, falling into the Infante with a huge splash, taking a mass of Westlander warriors with it.

Then he hit the ground. For a moment, everything went black around him. When he came back to consciousness, he saw faces above him and hands. “Hirzg, are you hurt?”

Jan let them pull him to his feet. His chest ached as if his horse had fallen on him, and the armor was heavily indented where the brick had struck him. His chest burned with every inhale; he had to sip the air as he shook off the hands. His horse was thrashing on the ground, a plank embedded in the creature’s side.

The bridge was down. The sun was already sinking to the level of the trees, throwing long shadows over the battlefield. The Westlanders had retreated back from the water’s edge to be out of arrow range. Jan limped to his horse. One of the stallion’s front legs was broken, and blood gushed from the long wound along its flank. “My sword?” he asked, and someone handed it to him. Kneeling down alongside the horse, he patted its neck. “Rest,” he said. “You’ve served well.” Grunting with pain, he raised the sword high and brought it down hard, slicing deep into the neck. The horse tried to stand one last time, then went still. The world seemed to dance around Jan, the edges of his vision darkening again. He forced himself to stand, leaning on the sword.