David Drake - The Gods Return

The creature's two hind legs collapsed, dropping it helpless to the ground. Dawn, flooding in through the opening in the eastern pediment, painted the nave the dusty red of blown roses. Soldiers enthusiastically cut at the legs on the left side, gashing chitin and spraying ichor in all directions without doing real harm. The scorpion was working itself around. Its remaining legs clacked sharply to get purchase on the polished stone. Sharina gasped to breathe, bending over slightly. Fatigue and the stink of the monster's fluids made her stomach churn. "Out of the way, farmers!" Ascor shouted. He had a javelin, perhaps the one Pont had dropped on the temple porch; he held it behind the balance. The heels of both his hands were forward as though it were a harpoon. One of the regulars turned and gaped at the Blood Eagle. Prester grabbed the man's swordbelt and hauled him clear with careless ease. Ascor took a long stride and lunged, thrusting the spear with all his strength into the scorpion's mouth. It sank to the wooden shaft. Ascor backed away. The scorpion's body arched together.

The stinger was still stuck in Prester's shield, a curved section of plywood that delivered a crushing blow to the creature's head plate.

The great body shuddered, but its movements were as mindless as ripples dancing on a pond in a sudden squall. Sharina straightened as she got her breath. She stood in a pool of dawn light. Men were shouting, and her arms were covered with ichor that thickened as it dried. Her skin itched. She heard, shefelt, a buzzing sound; the light about her changed. Dawn had become the cold ruby insistence of wizardlight. "The time is accomplished, Sharina," boomed Black's voice. "Now you must come to me!" The last thing she was aware of as she dropped out of the waking world was Burne, leaping from the floor to her right shoulder. *** "Thank you," Garric said to the boatman as the vessel grounded in the cypress grove. Rather than hand Tenoctris over the high gunwale, he took her satchel. "It's a rare pleasure to meet a scholar," the boatman said with a wan smile. "But I made a conscious choice. It wasn't a bad one, all things considered." The smile faded somewhat. The boat dissolved in mist and shadow as soon as Garric's boot touched the forest loam, but he thought he heard the boatman add,

"And I've had a very long time to consider." It was midmorning by the angle of the sun through the leaves. Tenoctris appeared beside him-out of thin air, it seemed. She wore a cheerful expression, but the lines of strain at the corners of her eyes hadn't been there when the two of them entered the grove the night before. If it was only one night.

"Your highness?" called Lord Waldron from just beyond the circle of trees. His presence here, a mile from the camp, was as unexpected as a troupe of dancing girls and it suggested much worse possibilities.

Waldron swung himself into the saddle. "Marstens, bring the mounts for his highness and Lady Tenoctris! Your highness, I'mvery glad you're back." He rode to Garric's side; it was only five or six double-paces, but Waldron couldn't imagine walking if there was a horse available.

He continued, "The enemy's approaching, about three days south of our present camp, and this isn't the best terrain to meet them on. We couldn't, of course, displace until you'd returned." "You say 'the enemy's approaching,'" Garric said. He felt buffeted by the change from discussing ancient historians on a boat sailing through the cosmos to planning a battle with an unknown enemy, but he supposed that was what it meant to be king. "The main body, you mean?" The king in his mind laughed merrily. "That's what it means to be a soldier, lad," Carus said. "Though I could've done without arguments on Poleinis and Timarion." "Yes, and the Emperor of Palomir himself is with them," Waldron said as his aide trotted up with two horses-a powerful bay gelding and a cream palfrey wearing a sidesaddle. "At any rate, there's a green banner with a white wedge that the scouts haven't seen before, and the pole seems to have a crown on it."

Tenoctris lifted herself easily onto the palfrey and wheeled it around so that she faced the men again. "Yes," she said, "that's the imperial standard. It's Mount Sebala rising above Palomir City. I can easily do a divination to make sure the emperor's really present, of course."

"No, no!" said Waldron with more than a touch of impatience. "We have to get back immediately and give the order to march. I've made the preparations, but of course the order-" He looked at Garric, now mounted beside him, and dipped his head in brief deference. "-will come from you, your highness." He gestured to the trumpeter beside him. His quick, silvery, "Advance" was echoed by the deeper notes of the cornicenes of the individual troops. The cavalry squadron started forward. Garric prodded his gelding into motion to keep up with the army commander. "Milord?" he said, not quite as irritated as King Carus but not pleased with the situation either. "Before I give any orders, what do you propose to do?" "Haft has a range of mountains down the spine, your highness," Waldron said. "Not so high as Blaise, but there's only one pass for fifty miles in either direction from the east coast to Carcosa." He must've noticed Garric glancing over his shoulder, because he added with the same impatience, "Your guards will follow at their own pace. I've given Lord Asterpos his orders." "I know Haft has hills," said Garric, controlling his exasperation in part because the boiling fury of the ghost in his mind was so obviously excessive. "And I've crossed from Barca's Hamlet to Carcosa, so I know the pass as well. Are you proposing to retreat to Carcosa?"

"Your highness, I forgot you were from Haft," said Waldron in startled contrition. Though it wouldn't be obvious to anyone who didn't know him, the army commander had just bestowed a great compliment: he had been thinking of Garric as a noble from Northern Ornifal like himself, not as a hick peasant from a backwater island. "And no, not retreat to Carcosa, but if we hold the pass the rats will have to come at us on a narrow front where they can't use their numbers." He cleared his throat and went on, "The Palomir army is larger than we'd expected.

Lord Zettin estimates there are at least forty thousand rats. I find Zettin a bumptious upstart, but his scouts seem to have a good grasp of their duties." "From previous reports it looked like the rats would come from the south rather than due east," Garric said. King Carus was sifting the data with a quick precision that his descendent would never be able to equal, but they'd come to the same conclusions regardless. "Is that still the case?" "Yes, your highness," said Waldron, visibly pleased that the camp was in sight. "They seem to have planned to overrun Cordin, but they turned north when they realized we were marching on them." Horns were calling from the camp.

The ghost of Carus scowled and said, "And I bloody well hope the artillery in the gate towers either isn't cocked or doesn't have bolts in the troughs, because they're pointing them at us." "Right," said Garric. "So we don't have to worry about Palomir maneuvering around us-they want a battle. We'll march half a day south into the dry grasslands between what used to be the coast of Haft and the reefs paralleling it. We'll give them their battle there, but I don't think it'll be the battle they want." "Your highness!" Waldron said. "I don't want you to think that I'm afraid-" Though the army commander had personality defects, nobody who knew him would suspect him of cowardice. "-but the safety of the kingdom depends on this battle.

There'll be time for the people in your home village to evacuate. And even if there wasn't, there'll be no hope for them anyway if the rats surround and destroy the royal army." The ghost in Garric's mind had a dangerous expression, but Garric gave Waldron a lopsided smile.