S Farrell - A Magic of Dawn

Any movement hurt. It hurt to breathe. He’d coughed up blood last night after he’d recovered consciousness, though that, thankfully, had stopped. Binding his chest in the armor actually felt good, but he wondered if he could take a sword blow to the ribs without collapsing. He wondered if he could lead his men the way a Hirzg should: at the head of the charge into the enemy. “Bring my horse to me,” Jan said, and the page saluted and scurried away.

He had spent the night in a tent beyond the second wall of earthworks. Most of the black sand had fallen well short of that encampment, but there were still craters of dark earth here and there, and smoke from grass fires that had to be extinguished. The offiziers had reported the losses to him a half-turn earlier after calling the rolls. Jan had been appalled. He had brought over 4,000 gardai and some 300 chevarittai to Nessantico. He and Starkkapitan ca’Damont had split them nearly equally. Jan now had less than 1,000 gardai and five double hands of chevarittai; ca’Damont had less.

No, he could not send a company to the Kraljica. He would be lucky to return to Nessantico with a full company himself. He’d read the message from ca’Talin: Outlook grim. Recommend holding as long as possible, then falling back to the city itself. Under it, in his spidery handwriting, ca’Damont had added a brief I concur. Jan had sent his own message in return to the two:

Agreed. Make them pay for crossing the river, then fall back to the River Market. We’ll regroup there and consult with the Kraljica.

The page came back leading a warhorse that had once borne one of the dead chevarittai. The boy placed a step next to the horse, then helped hoist Jan into the saddle. He managed to get himself seated without groaning aloud. “Thank you,” he told the boy, saluting. He cantered away, wincing as every step jarred his body. He rode up the short slope to the top of the second embankment. He waited there for several breaths, looking out over the landscape.

Most of his troops were gathered below, in the wide trough between the earthworks, snaking away far to the south and the Starkkapitan ca’Damont’s command, and past there to Commandant ca’Talin, and extending north for a half-mile or so to the Avi a’ Nostrosei. Beyond the slope of the first embankment across from Jan, there was a quarter mile or less of flat ground between the earthworks and the River Infante-the field was torn by horses and the boots of the soldiers, and pockmarked with craters from the black sand bombardment. On the other side of the Infante, Jan could see the army of the Tehuantin. Their offiziers were already setting the formations, and Jan could see small flags planted here and there along the far riverbank-he assumed their scouts had marked the shallows where the river could be forded.

There were far too many flags. The Infante was neither deep nor wide like the A’Sele; there were too many places where the Tehuantin could cross. Last night, Jan had asked one of the local gardai to map the spots where footmen could wade across; he had archers placed across from the potential fords.

Make them pay for crossing the river… He might not be able to stop them, but he could charge them a steep toll.

A few Westlander archers sent futile arrows in his direction; they fell short, and Jan gestured obscenely at them. “Come on!” he shouted at them, his chest burning with the effort. “Come on; we’re waiting for you, bastardos! We ready to make your wives widows and your children orphans!” He said it for the benefit of the gardai in the trench between the embankments, who looked up at him and cheered; he doubted that any of the Westlanders understood his words at all, even if they understood the tone. He wanted to double over from the stabbing pain in his chest as he roared his defiance, but instead he smiled and gestured again at the Tehuantin. A few hundred strides away, he saw his banners, and he saluted the men and went to where his offiziers had gathered.

“Another sunrise,” he told them. “That’s always a good sight. The sun is at our backs and in their eyes. Let’s make this day the last they see.”

Allesandra paraded on her warhorse before those gathered in the courtyard of the palais. In the false dawn, her armor gleamed, yesterday’s gore scrubbed and polished away. Brie, Talbot, and that damned fool Sergei were behind her on their own horses, watching as she stalked the line. She let her anger and frustration ride freely in her words.

“We have no choice,” she told them. “It is my duty-it is our duty-to protect this city, and I will not let us betray that trust. Right now, the Westlanders hold the South Bank. They walk streets that should be safe for our citizens, plundering our houses and our temples, killing and raping those who have remained behind. The Hirzg’s forces and our own Garde Civile are facing their main army on the North Bank; they have tasked us with protecting their rear flank, and with keeping the city a safe place for their return. We must hold the South Bank. I will hold the South Bank.”

She paused as another fireball screamed through the brightening sky-they all watched it. Her horse trembled underneath her, and she patted its muscular neck, calming it as the fireball fell to earth behind them across the Avi. “You see?” she said. “The Tehuantin mean nothing less than the destruction of the Holdings and Nessantico. Stay here, and all of you will die anyway. If I’m to die, I would rather die with my sword in my hand and my enemy bleeding at my feet.”

The cheer that came from them was loud but ragged. Even some of those shouting looked unsure. The sparkwheelers, to one side, shuffled uneasily; she noticed Brie glaring at them. “We march today to glory,” she told them, pulling her sword from its sheath and holding it aloft. “We march for the Holdings. We march for Nessantico. And I will march with you, at your head.”

An open-top, teni-driven carriage rattled down the streets through the smoke, moving slowly around the rubble in the street; Allesandra could see the symbol of Cenzi’s cracked globe on the doors of the vehicle. “Today, the Archigos himself will march with us,” she added. “Make yourselves ready. We will begin the attack in two marks of the glass, and we’ll show these Westlanders how the Holdings responds to those who threaten it.”

They cheered again, because-Allesandra knew-it was expected of them, because they wanted to believe her even as fear made their bowels want to turn to water. She rode toward the Archigos’ carriage with Brie, Talbot, and Sergei trailing her. Archigos Karrol’s balding head peered over the side of the carriage; he did not look pleased to be here. Two pale, younger faces were visible behind him. “Archigos, I’m glad to see you,” Allesandra said. “However belatedly.”

“Let’s not pretend that you or the Hirzg left me any choice, Kraljica,” he answered. “But I’m here.”

“And the war-teni?”

“There are four more who have arrived from the east today. I sent two to the Hirzg; the other two are with me. They understand the consequences if they fail to serve.” He gestured to the other two teni in the carriage.

“Good,” she told him. “I hope they’re well-rested. We need them now. Talbot, if you’d take charge of the war-teni and the archers. Brie, you have the sparkwheelers.” She scowled at Sergei, still feeling anger at the man’s insolence in disregarding her orders. “Sergei, you’ll be with me and the Archigos.”

They assembled quickly. While Allesandra remained furious with Sergei for having destroyed the eastern bridge, she had to admit that a two-pronged attack across both bridges would have divided and thinned their forces too much. Still, the difficulty was that they would all need to cross the Pontica a’Brezi Veste. The fact that the Tehuantin had left the bridge standing and not destroyed it from their end told Allesandra that they wanted the bridge intact as much as she did-so they could meet up with their army on the North Bank. Sergei’s urging to retreat to the Isle and the North Bank, destroying all the southern bridges across the A’Sele to isolate this arm of the Tehuantin, made tactical sense.