What Lies Beyond, page 29
part #6 of The Cycle of Galand Series
Dasya hadn't brought his spear, but he was carrying a side-sword, and his hand now drifted to its grip. "And how much will you be able to do for your people if I call my men to kill you where you stand?"
"You and all of the Jessel would die before a single one of us does," Gladdic said. "Once we finish with you and ride off at full speed, it is doubtful that any of the other bands could catch us."
"You think too highly of yourselves."
"I think of myself in precise accordance with the abilities that have allowed me to commit atrocities you could only dream of inflicting on the city before you."
Dante waited a moment to break the ensuing silence. "Dasya, the gods' own hubris has made them vulnerable. We're at a point where we may be able to rip their alliance apart. But if you go after Phannon right when she's ready to defect from Taim's grasp, it will only reunite them all against you. Even if you triumph here, it'll be the last victory you see."
Dasya clenched his jaw, glaring back at him. "If the justice of the heavens was real, it would strike you down right now. But there is no divine justice, is there? The history of my people proves that."
"So does what's happening to my people right now."
"It is dishonorable of you to ask for this and I think less of you for doing so." The warrior spat to the side and drew on his horse's reins. "But you have left me no choice. Make your false raid on the camp, and we will see if we can draw the ramna to Silidus instead."
21
"Well," Blays said. "Are we ready?"
Dante stared into the darkness ahead of them as if trying to read it. It was one in the morning and most of the camp's fires had drawn down, and though there were scouts and sentries about, the night was as quiet as nights got. Apparently even the barbarous ramna knew that a good night's sleep was the best way to ensure a smooth morning of slaughter and pillage.
He was getting a little tired himself. But they had to make their move that same night, or else, come daylight, there would be no move left to make.
"We're sure we've got the right ones?"
"Dasya said to look for the fellows with dead snakes tied around their heads, didn't he?" Blays sniffed. "Unless their dashing fashion has rightly caught on with others, I'd say we've found our match."
The group of sleeping warriors was known as the Atalls, and Dasya had named them as both enemies of the Jessel and as prideful cowards. In other words, the perfect target for a raid.
"You are delaying," Gladdic said. "Should I lead us forward in your stead?"
"I'm just making sure that everything's in place," Dante said, feeling himself getting testy. "It's not like we've had a lot of time to prepare."
"Yet we have done everything we can with what is before us. The rest relies on whether the Atalls swallow the bait—and how well Dasya helps to sell it."
He was right, of course, but that only made it more annoying. "Let's go."
Dante rode forward, the horse gathering its deadly momentum. He had already nicked the back of his arm and the nether ran to him with even greater speed than his mount. He pulled his hood up and used the shadows to make a few quick adjustments to their faces. The disguises wouldn't have looked believable under full daylight, but with no more than the moon to expose them, and what would hopefully be an awful lot of chaos to muddy the perceptual waters, he expected they'd be all right.
The Atalls' camp was on the ramna army's right flank. The army itself had set down on the eastern shore of a straight stretch of a river that ran as much as a hundred yards across but was rarely deeper than twelve feet, and included an easy ford in the middle of the Atall lines. Come morning, the ramna meant to use this as the staging point for their crossing, which would leave nothing but a few ponds and shallow streams between them and Phannon's city.
Which meant Dante was highly incentivized to destroy the ford.
Two bolts of nether zipped from Gladdic's hand, knocking dead a pair of sentries. Dante trampled past the bodies and sent his mind into the bank of the river. Lots of smallish rocks, along with soil that wasn't particularly firm, likely deposited there by a recent flood. Very easy to manipulate.
He loosened it into mud, letting the river do the work of sweeping most of it away while he sucked the harder clay beneath it deep into the earth. The entire bank collapsed. Sleeping men splashed into the water and immediately stopped sleeping and started screaming instead.
Dante hammered at the ford, sinking it by ten feet. Next to him, Gladdic hurled ether before him in sparkling gusts. Most of it was unusually poorly aimed, and in fact almost unerringly seemed to smash into trees and boulders instead, tossing up all kinds of debris and making a big loud mess…while doing very little damage to the Atalls themselves.
Warriors leaped from their bedrolls, grabbing up spears and swords and bows. Only a few of their horses were saddled, but that didn't deter them from hopping on to ride bareback.
"It's Phannon's sorcerers!" someone yelled. "Sent to stab us in the dark!"
Gladdic laughed in contempt. His voice boomed through the trees. "We are not sent by Phannon!"
"He lies! The river, it rises!"
"What if it does? The power of water is not Phannon's alone: for the moon can also lift the tide to wash away the filth!"
This only seemed to confuse them. Then again, they'd just been rudely plucked from sleep and thrust into battle, and their capacity for understanding probably wasn't at its sharpest. Dante had done about all the damage to the crossing that would make any difference, so he reached up his hand and cast a red illusion over the face of the moon.
"They are not of Phannon," a voice called out from the southern reaches of the Atall camp. "They are sent by Silidus!"
Blays responded with some malevolent laughter. Silidus' name rang out from several different warriors, passing deeper into the camps. The first horsemen were coming toward them, loosing arrows; Dante and Gladdic put down anyone who shot at them, ignoring the others for now.
Nether crackled from the camp. The ramna sorcerers had finally entered the fray. Under different circumstances, Dante would have been curious to hear how their theology worked—after all, their powers had been granted to them by the gods, who they'd string up by the ears if they had the chance—but it didn't seem the appropriate time for cultural exchange.
"I'd say we've kicked the nest," Blays said. "Is it fleeing time?"
"Absolutely," Dante said. "If we wait much longer, it's going to become 'dying to barbarians' time."
They curled away, ducking arrows and lobbing more ether and nether behind them. A swarm of Atalls followed. A horn blew, followed by several more, easing the tightness around Dante's heart. More and more of the war band camps were coming to life, lighting torches and bellowing about the treachery of the foul moon god. If Dasya was holding to his word, he'd be among them, insisting that this dishonorable and disgraceful attack must be met with iron and steel.
Either Dasya was an effective orator, or the others didn't need his encouragement. As Dante and the others ran from their immediate pursuit, more and more warriors beyond the Atall joined the chase. Gashen's horses could outrun all but the very swiftest of the ramna's animals, and the three of them eased back on their speed to entice the barbarians to keep following them.
The lead pursuit soon wore off their gallops and dropped back. Dante opened up a little more space, then slowed as well, flushing nether through the horses' muscles in case they needed to run again. But the chase then became a matter of endurance, with hundreds of torches and thousands of riders flowing after them.
Blays laughed. "Are they really switching targets over one little raid?"
"That was the plan, wasn't it?" Dante said.
"Yes, but I'm starting to get the crazy idea they just really like fighting."
"It's the sneakiness of it. And the fact it was unprovoked. For wildmen, the ramna seem to have a lot of ideas about how fights are supposed to be fought."
After a while, they were able to slow a little more, though the ramna kept sending well-rested horsemen to the front to replace those whose mounts were getting worn down. On the one hand this was good news, in that it proved the ramna's dedication, but it meant Dante and the others had to keep up a pace that would have exhausted lesser animals.
Blays glanced at Gladdic, then did a double-take. "What are you so happy about?"
"A plan conceived and executed smoothly," Gladdic said. "Did that not lift your heart?"
"Sure. But I didn't know you had one of those."
"If there exists a soul who feels no thrill at riding down his enemies in the dark, he is better off dead."
Dante didn't suppose the Atall were their enemies, per se, but he understood the sentiment. There was a verve to it, to any successful raid. Yet this one had something more to it: the sense that they had restored a fellowship that had recently looked lost for good. One that could challenge any obstacle that got in its path.
Around four in the morning, the ramna came to a stop and settled down, bringing an end to the pursuit. Dante, Blays, and Gladdic moved a mile away, then took turns sleeping while one kept watch. Dante was afraid the barbarians would decide the whole thing had been a lot of foolishness and go back to sacking Crosswater, but before he knew it Blays nudged him awake and told him the ramna were on the move.
And they were heading north. Toward Protus.
They shadowed the warriors from a distance. Despite the rough night, the ramna were in high spirits, chanting battle-poems to each other as they made their steady way north across a landscape of patchy fields of grass and bare stone sporting finger-like spires of basalt like trees stripped to nothing but their trunks. They'd covered a good deal of ground the night before and it wasn't long before the spires began to glitter and twinkle. Streams flowed here and there, adding to the visual confusion.
Protus cohered from the dazzle of the light. At this distance, its towers and spires looked insubstantial, more like wisps of steam than anything solid.
"Do you suppose she'll go for the ransom?" Blays said.
"There's no way she expected the war band to switch from Phannon to her overnight," Dante said. "She's already feeling antsy about the schism brewing between the gods. I don't see her opting to fight a pitched battle rather than hand over some treasure to get the barbarians to go away from her gates."
"You assume much," Gladdic said. "Even in times of peace, common people and their rulers alike cannot be counted on to act in ways that are wise."
"In any event, I suppose we'd better remind Dasya of the plan before any of the bands takes it on themselves to attempt something glorious."
Dante had dropped the illusions on their faces as soon as the chase had ended the night before, and they now changed cloaks as well, with him and Blays wearing the same things as when they'd first journeyed with the Jessel. Even so, it was a bit dicey to approach the ramna as a trio of horsemen, and they alerted the Jessel to their presence using a set of bird calls and subtle displays of nether they'd worked out with Dasya before the raid.
After some maneuvering through brush-choked gullies, they emerged into the middle of the Jessel, who didn't look remotely as tired as they should have. Dasya was in a mood to match his warriors, shoulders thrown back, smiling steadily at the approaching city.
"Well, that went off better than I could have hoped," Dante said on riding up next to him. "We did our best to limit the amount of actual damage. Just enough to get everyone very angry."
"I noticed," Dasya said. "I am sure you could have ripped every last Atall out by the roots if that was what you had wished."
"Which very much wasn't the plan. I'm sorry there had to be any losses at all, but I can promise you they'll be a lot fewer than if you'd attacked Phannon and—"
"You have no need to explain yourself to me. I know why what was done was done. Now we make for the gates of Protus, eh?"
"Right. The more threatening you make your approach, the better. We need Silidus afraid enough that she'll hand over her part of the spear without any fighting. We'd never be able to find it on our own."
"Perhaps it is better for things to have gone as they have. We will come away with the wealth of Silidus without sacrificing any of our might at the walls of the gods."
He nodded to them, then moved off to hold a rather intense discussion with several of his best warriors. The city drew closer, as did the marsh surrounding it; when the wind was right, Dante could smell its sulfur on the air. High-pitched horns piped from within Protus. A few citizens were out beyond the marsh on various errands, but only a few were able to retreat to the city, the others caught off guard, left with no choice but to flee into the wilderness and hope the ramna wouldn't bother with them.
The army came before the edge of the marsh.
Dante went to find Dasya and offer to extend a land bridge between the islands to the city gates, but a swarm of warriors was already dismounting and jogging to the waterline. Using picks and shovels, they heaped earth into the water, extending a path faster than seemed possible. Others followed behind them to tamp down the earth with their feet. Barbarian sorcerers were flicking at the work with both ether and nether, but Dante couldn't see exactly what their efforts were getting done.
The engineering team advanced with absurd speed. As they got further from shore, rendering it harder to acquire enough dirt, the nethermancers took the lead. Their sorcerers didn't have the ability to shape the earth in the sense the People of the Pocket did, but they did have the ability to just smash it out from the water and heap it into a pile, which the manual laborers flattened and extended. The walls of Protus bristled with defenders, but they made no effort to sortie.
With one last push, the ramna sorcerers heaped the final portion of their earthworks up to the broad semicircle of land outside the gates. The workers parted, allowing a single rider to advance.
During the work, the three outlanders had stayed at the edge of the marsh where they wouldn't draw any undue attention from the ramna. This also left them unable to hear what the ramna man was yelling to the people on the wall, or what they were saying back to him.
Whatever it was, it didn't take long. The ramna commander wheeled his horse to face his troops. He thrust up his fists and bellowed something. His men shook their spears at the sky, bellowing back, and charged toward the walls.
"Wait," Dante said. "What's happening?"
"Looks like negotiations broke down," Blays said. Nether darkened the gates, which then exploded. "Yes, I'd say they definitely broke down."
Ramna horsemen poured toward the mangled remnants of the gates. Dante galloped toward Dasya, who was beaming at the scene and waiting for the Jessel's turn to enter the causeway.
"What the hell is this?" Dante gestured to the invasion unfolding across the marsh. "You were supposed to ransom them, not ransack them!"
The captain grinned toothily. "Our lord of battle must have decided that peace was not an option. Who am I to question him?"
"Given that your lord and the Proteans spoke for four whole seconds, I'd almost think he made that decision before offering them the chance to pay the ransom!"
"You stopped us from taking blood back from Phannon. Did you really think we would not take it from Silidus instead?"
Motion at the causeway; the Jessel were riding forth. Dasya spun about and joined them, cheering as he went.
Smoke was already rising from Protus. Blays quirked his mouth. "Have we done a bad thing?"
Dante gripped the sides of his head. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"
"So, er, what do we do now?"
Gladdic watched the army pack itself inside the city. Screams lingered on the air. "Perhaps if we inquire politely, the savages will come to understand how much this inconveniences us, and bring their poor behavior to an end."
"It's beyond an inconvenience!" Dante gestured helplessly at the city. "What reason would Silidus have to give us her spear now?"
Blays cracked his knuckles. "Give?"
"How are we going to take it when we have no hope of finding it?"
"Something tells me it's going to be in the palace. Something else tells me our best chance to get to the palace is while the ramna are throwing everything into madness. We can figure out the rest on the way."
Dante felt the instinct to argue, but there was no part of it that could be argued. The ramna had their causeway completely clogged and it looked to be several minutes before the last of them would be through. Instead of waiting, Dante jabbed his arm to get some blood flowing, then lifted his hand and angrily conjured a bridge to the closest island, sending stagnant black water splashing violently. He trotted across the bridge, extending another one to the next island. This drew a lot of attention from the ramna, but instead of shooting arrows at him, they just used it as a secondary route to get their people to the gates faster, following right behind Blays.
The series of bridges brought them to the gates, or rather to say the mangled wreckage of them. A lot of bodies had been thrown about, as many dressed in the silver and dark purple of Silidus as in the skins and leathers of the ramna. The air smelled like blood and broken stone. Stray arrows soared back and forth, but the barbarians had already pushed the fighting several blocks into the interior. And this despite concerted sorcery from the Protean defenders. Apparently it was very, very difficult to deal with entire armies on horseback, especially once they were past your defenses. Dante suddenly understood why the gods rarely ventured outside the fortifications of their kingdoms.
He oriented himself toward the gossamer spires of the palace. "It occurs to me that we might be headed for the most heavily defended part of the city."
"Are you kidding?" Blays said.
"Do I think that in times of invasion, the people might retreat to their palace?"
"Most of the palaces in the Realm haven't looked capable of defending themselves against a spring breeze. They're built to make you look at them and say 'Wow, these gods sure are worthy of being worshipped by us.' But for defense? Everyone who matters will be holed up in a place like that."
