Robert Asprin - Wartorn Obliteration

He waited for Matokin's reply. He would not surrender Kumbat. Kumbat was his . The mage would provide rejuvenation spells whenever Dardas needed them. Perhaps the wizard could even find a way to permanently expunge Weisel's presence from this vessel.

Berkant's face remained slack. A slow frown touched Dardas's lips. Was something wrong?

Abruptly, a muscle twitched violently in Berkant's cheek. The wizard's unfocused eyes widened, and he gulped in air. His whole body shuddered.

Just as suddenly, Berkant's eyes came into sharp focus, fixing intently on Dardas. His hand shot out and seized the front of Dardas's uniform. Some vehement emotion spilled across his features. He was either frightened, or furious, or in great pain.

"Help..." Berkant panted, as Dardas moved to break the man's hold on him. Was this Matokin's doing? Had the Felk ruler somehow directed Berkant to attack him? But that made no sense, not if Matokin's threat about blood magic was real. Maybe it wasn't.

Another great shudder went through Berkant. He suddenly stiffened, then collapsed utterly, hitting the ground with a heavy thud.

Dardas looked down at the body, stunned. Fergon rushed to Dardas's side.

"General, are you—"

"I'm fine. See if he's alive."

Fergon knelt and felt Berkant's throat, then his chest.

"He's dead, sir," Fergon said.

Dardas shook his head. "It was quite sudden." Then again, he mused, that was how death came sometimes—swiftly and inexplicably.

"I'll get him out of your way, General," Fergon said, summoning two of Dardas's personal guard to haul the body away. How quickly it had become an object, Dardas noted, something to be removed to allow freer movement for the living.

The episode had taken up a relatively large amount of time, considering the urgency of the battle his army was engaged in.

"Fergon! I need fresh field reports."

His aide scrambled to comply. Dardas glanced and saw Raven once again. He'd forgotten about her. She appeared now to be in a daze of some sort. She staggered where she was standing, and nearly fell.

Dardas motioned her over to him. She came, blinking, footsteps unsure.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked.

"I... I... I... General, it's—" She could barely make coherent sounds. Her lovely face was pale with shock.

He took her shoulders and leaned close to her. "Raven, what's happened to you?"

"Raven?" she murmured, forlornly. Then she shook her head. Tears were welling up in her eyes. "No. No Raven. Raven's gone. Just... gone . She just suddenly... I can't explain... I—"

Something cold and hard closed over Dardas's chest. "What do you mean she's gone?" he asked.

She blinked some more. "I'm just Vadya now. Raven's not with me anymore." The tears overflowed and streaked her face. "She wanted to tell... her father... wanted to tell him..."

Dardas turned away. Fergon was there. He, too, looked distressed.

"General," his aide said, "the Far Speak wizards—they, uh, sir, uh—"

"Godsdamnit, what's happened?" Dardas barked, but somewhere inside he already knew.

"They're dead, sir," Fergon said hoarsely. He turned and gestured.

Dardas saw the dark-robed shapes on the ground, a short distance off. His other officers were milling around the scene, unsettled, upset.

Had Matokin done this? If so, the man was insane.

Dardas called to his guards. "You and you and you and you," he said, pointing out each in turn. "You're going to be my messengers. Get yourselves some fast horses." He pointed out another group. "You four, scatter through the ranks. Find out if there's a magician left alive in this army. Go!"

They jumped to obey, and that was somewhat reassuring. But if this was as widespread as Dardas feared, then panic would be rippling through his army. His regular troops, his officers and soldiers, would have just witnessed the sudden and simultaneous deaths of the wizards they had fought alongside, and come to grudgingly respect, these past lunes. It would be like a shock to the body; and that body, his army, would be stunned from the trauma, and would be vulnerable while it tried to recover itself.

If the strategic intelligence behind the enemy army's movements realized the Felk army's sudden vulnerability, it could be disastrous. Dardas had to be pragmatic about this. He had to assume the enemy would thrust at them when they were weakest.

It was what he would do.

If every wizard under his command was indeed dead, then he was without his special advantages. But he was still Dardas the Butcher, and he would still demonstrate to any opponent how he had earned that title.

Dardas vaulted atop his map-strewn table. This plain was very flat and with so many torches burning among the ranks of both armies, he could see quite a distance.

There they were. The enemy. He saw the clumps of troops and horses. Dardas was indifferent to the ideologies that separated their two forces. The Felk wanted total conquest; this amalgamated army plainly meant to defend their homelands against that; whereas Dardas only wanted war. For him, it was a simple case of physical law. War required resistance. He had to have something to overcome, in order to justify his own existence. Without an enemy, he was incomplete.

But this might be more than he'd bargained for.

The word came back to him that every last wizard in the Felk ranks had apparently died, without outward cause, at precisely the same instant. As he'd suspected, panic was indeed running rampant through his army. Dardas was now without Far Movement mages to transport his forces, without Far Speak wizards to relay field intelligence or make contact with distant parts of the Isthmus. He had even lost Kumbat, who he'd gone to such lengths to acquire. Which brought up an interesting point.

What would happen to him, Dardas, the next time he required a rejuvenation spell?

Dardas climbed down from the table. The enemy had evidently seen the agitation in their ranks. They were moving now against the Felk. He had seen the forward ranks charging.

"Fergon," he said. "Bring my sword."

The aide delivered it, and Dardas strapped it on. His senior officers were gathered, their faces fearful.

"My fellows," Dardas said, his tone quiet and serious, "we are warriors, all. In our hearts is the longing to fight. Now is our time."

He called for his horse. He gave his last general orders, to be relayed through the ranks.

Attack. Attack the enemy.

Dardas glanced a last time at the dazed woman who had been a vessel for Raven. He thought of his own fellow occupant within this body, poor piteous Lord Weisel, who had imagined an exalted role for himself in this war.

Weisel, ironically, would be remembered, no matter if this night ended in obliteration for the Felk army.

Dardas's teeth bared as he rode toward the front ranks, drawing and swinging his sword overhead, rallying his fighters, letting them see him, leading and inspiring them, calling them to the only true glory that life could ever offer.

At that moment of ultimate crisis, when the soldiers spotted them atop that roof, he, curiously enough, had only one concern in mind—Quentis's safety.

Deo had fired off one bolt from his crossbow. Bryck watched as he slapped the weapon to his shoulder a second time, a fresh bolt in place, grinning as he worked the trigger.

" Got him!"

No matter how accurate a shot it had been, Bryck noted silently, it couldn't make nearly enough of a difference. Not with the number of armed Felk in the street below, now alerted to their position above.

Quentis was by Bryck's side. Radstac, sword in hand, had joined Deo. The others of the Broken Circle, including Aquint and Nievze, had made their escape off the far lip of the rooftops, Bryck saw with a distant shudder of relief. It was of course crucial that the blood magic wizard got away, so to perform his spell.