Arcanum Part 17

"No," she said. "That stays."

"As you wish. Master Buber and two of the earls have ridden on ahead. Our attack will commence shortly."

"And this attack? Conducted to the old rules? March up to the enemy, cut them down and, when they run, hunt them like rabbits?"

Allegretti shrugged. His plate-laden coat was heavy with absorbed water. "More or less. The spears will advance, flanked by the horse. You and me and Gerhard and Felix will ride behind the spearmen. Very Roman."

"What will the Teutons be doing?"

"They will try not to engage with us, initially. They have bows and will use them. Their baggage train will be close by Signore Buber is looking for it and we need to close with that. They will make every effort to protect it, and they will melee with us at that point."

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine it. The Teutons travelling with the wagons would defend them, even it was just women and children. It would mean, when the Teuton horsemen charged them, the Carinthians would most likely be fighting both at the front and the rear at the same time.

"Is it a good plan, Master Allegretti?"

"It is not the worst I've heard. At least our lord realises that the town itself is unimportant. A lesser general would fight their way into the centre, only to find themselves surrounded. By seizing their baggage, he forces them to fight us. If he destroys it, they are destitute so they will continue to fight long after the moment when they should retreat."

"But? I can hear it in your voice."

"We run the risk of being overwhelmed. Every casualty we suffer is critical. Spearmen are only strong in numbers. If we have too few, they cannot support each other, and then it comes to their individual prowess as fighters." Allegretti looked over his shoulder at the nearest knot of spearmen, huddled together and talking in low voices. "These are not hardened warriors, practised in the shieldwall and the schiltrom, bloodied in battle and strong of heart. We must be ready to act, if it becomes necessary. These things can fall apart in moments."

A shout called the infantry to order, and they lined up in a field, three rows deep. They looked less fierce than they should have done. The horses split into two groups, which only served to show how few of them there were, and arranged themselves at either end of the line.

Gerhard and Felix came riding down the road towards them.

"See the flower of Carinthian manhood, Master Allegretti? The battle's as good as won."

"As you say, my lord."

Felix looked excited and nervous, and Nikoleta thought that he had absolutely no idea of what was going to happen. The boy held an oval shield on his left, his cavalry sword already unsheathed on his right, steering his horse with his legs only.

"You seem eager, young Master," she said.

He beamed back. "Who wouldn't be? This has to be the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me."

"Felix-" started Allegretti, but Gerhard interrupted.

"Gods, now's not the time for one of your lectures. The boy's got his blood up! Like his father, and his father's father before him." He banged his fist against his own shield. "Where's my huntmaster? We need our target."

Nikoleta untied her horse and slopped onto the back of it, while Allegretti resolutely remained on foot. At least the heat from the beast kept her warm.

Finally, Buber appeared over the hill, with only one of the earls behind him. They were riding at speed, then slowed to an energy-saving trot once they drew closer.

He was out of breath as he tried to explain to Gerhard.

"In the centre. Market square. They're all there."

"Where's Bruckner?"

"It wasn't easy, my lord. We had to get almost into the town. They've placed wagons across the roads to the square."

"Barricaded themselves in, eh?" The loss of an earl didn't seem to bother the prince unduly, so Nikoleta assumed he was a person of no great importance. "A static target."

"The wagons only. The Teutons are riding out to meet us."

"Good, good," he said, despite that not being part of his plan at all. They were now trying to take a defended position.

"How many roads into the square, Master Buber?"

"Two. One this side, the other to the north-east."

"And, like the town squares in Juvavum, tall houses on each side?"

"Yes," said Buber. He leant heavily on the horn of his saddle and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His exertions had opened the cuts on his face again, and even the arrow wound was weeping.

"Like a castle, then, and just as in the stories, the gates will be blasted inwards and we'll take the keep by force." Gerhard wheeled his horse around. "Mount up, Master Allegretti. Carinthia is at war and every man will do his duty."

He and Felix rode into the field to take up their positions, and Allegretti walked silently to his horse. He gave it a pat on the neck, and swung himself up.

"Every man?" she wondered out loud.

"Perhaps he has forgotten you are a woman, in the same way he has already forgotten how many drunken evenings he has enjoyed with the late Earl Bruckner."

The other earl went to join his assigned group, and Buber slowly straightened up, hauling in more air. "This. This whole thing..."

"Is madness?" offered Allegretti.

"There's too many of them. Even for you." He looked at Nikoleta as he spoke.

"That remains to be seen." Three of the four Teutons they'd already killed were laid out, headless, by the side of the road. The fourth, the one she had incinerated, had been left where he'd fallen. No one had wanted to touch him. "I've no particular wish to die, but neither will I counsel despair," she said. "The dice are cast; let them fall where they may."

"So said mighty Caesar, who had all the armies of Rome behind him." Allegretti reached across his body and drew his sword. "I would rather the gods' honest earth under my feet than this contrary animal, but my lord decrees I ride rather than walk."

He followed in the direction taken by Gerhard, and Buber shook his head violently. Spray from his hair and face flew off in all directions.

"I have to protect you," he said. "That sounds even less likely than when Allegretti first suggested it."

"Then there'll be little more for you to do today," said Nikoleta. "Be grateful that your work is done."

He snorted. "Of course it is. I'll believe that."

"The advance has been sounded. We're late."

"Oh, arse." Buber dragged his head up and indicated that Nikoleta should go first through the gap in the wall. She trotted off and slid into line next to Gerhard. On his other side rode Felix, and then Allegretti.

"Where are your robes, Mistress?" asked the prince.

"A simple subterfuge. I thought it wise." She left Allegretti's involvement out for the moment. Gerhard's continual sniping at his son's tutor was wearing, and she was much less likely to suffer his sarcasm. Teachers were replaceable. She, uniquely, was not.

Across the fields, in the distance near the town where the buildings ended and the farms began, there were horsemen. Enough of them to resemble a swarm of flies.

They were sufficiently closely packed for Gerhard to look at her again.

"Just over half a mile, my lord. Not a range I can make."

He tutted, but she knew the stories told by the mundanes didn't exactly match with what a hexmaster's abilities actually were. That thought sent her off on another wild chase through her memories: perhaps magic had been failing on a grand scale for centuries, and no one had noticed. Perhaps it had simply been used up, and they were now dining on the dregs.

When she looked again, the Teutons had spread out in a loose picket that extended far beyond their own line, and they were advancing.

Any moment now, and the arrows would start falling. At the rate the infantrymen were marching, they would be under fire for the whole ten minutes it would take them to reach the outskirts of Obernberg. They were struggling to stay in formation as it was, their boots picking up layers of cloying mud as they walked, and there was no hope of them speeding up, let alone running.

Nikoleta decided she'd have to start killing Teutons sooner, rather than later. Every one of them dead meant one less bow and a lot fewer arrows aimed at their own troops.

She fell back to ride with Buber.

"Can you keep up?" she asked.

He eyed her warily. "Does this mean you're about to do something stupid?"

"That depends," she said, "on how you define stupid. Can you keep up?"

"If I have to. I'll ask the nag too, shall I?"

"Is that a yes?"

"Gods, woman. Yes, just don't expect too much." Buber rolled his eyes. "You've seen me ride."

She had. She knew exactly what to expect. She pulled her horse around in a tight circle and started off towards the left flank. Buber trailed behind her, his horse already puffing. The ten Carinthian horse beyond the line of spearmen weren't looking particular purposeful. They had more the air of a bunch of nobles out for an afternoon's hunting, back before sunset for some feasting and other such entertainments that their lord had laid on for them.

She knew all about that. It was the poor bastards trudging along on foot she had sympathy for.

She and Buber were beyond the army now. She wasn't even sure if the prince had noticed her absence from the centre of the line. The nearest Teutons were more than dots at this range: fully realised men on horses, black and shaggy-maned, the rain shining off their armour, the light twisting on their helmets.

She reached out for them, and found them quite easily, their hot blood and beating hearts resounding in her mind like a chorus of drums.

"Are you ready, Master Buber?"

"Just how close are we going to have to get?" He reached down for his crossbow.

"Not that close, but don't you want to see the whites of their eyes?"

"Only if we have to." He pulled back on the lever, and the bowstring clicked into place. "You're nothing like I thought a sorcerer would be."

"Good, because I hate every last one of them." She clipped her heels into her horse's flanks and trotted out towards the enemy. The two at the end of the Teuton line started to take an interest in them. Unsure of what Nikoleta and Buber were doing, they pulled arrows from their quivers and took aim.

The air stiffened in front of her. She'd never done this on horseback before: on foot, the shield moved seamlessly with her. She had to assume it would work the same way now. The rain stopped falling on her, and instead ran in rivulets down the air.

The Teuton's arrows were arcing towards them, flights dark against an already dark sky. They would miss, but, unlike her opponents, she didn't need a ranging shot. She singled out the first man's heartbeat and concentrated on it until it was the only sound she could hear.

Her tattoos flashed and shifted on her skin, and her palm, empty moments before, held a tiny ball of white fire.

Concentrate on the sound of the double concussion, the opening and closing of flaps of skin, the squeezing of muscles. She had it completely, almost as if she could see it beneath his chest.

The fire flitted away. It swelled as it flew, growing from the brilliant pebble to a fist-sized storm of light. It didn't drop like an arrow would. It went perfectly straight, and it went faster than anything should have ever left a human hand.

The Teuton appeared transfixed by the oncoming storm. His comrade-in-arms shouted, but it was too late had been too late from the very beginning. The man took the fire dead centre, and it consumed him in a wave.

Nikoleta heard the heart stop. The silence was abrupt, and she was suddenly aware of the world again.

She heard Buber say "fuck" under his breath. The second Teuton nocked another arrow and started for her.

Again, she felt for him, sorting through all the souls until she found his. The fire sprang to life, suspended by her will, cradled in her fingers. The Teuton stopped his ill-considered dash and loosed off his arrow. He was close enough that he would have hit her, or her horse, or Buber, but that didn't matter so much as that he was already dead when the arrow banged against the invisible wall in front of her and broke in two.

The flames and the greasy smoke had attracted attention, from both sides. The poor bloody infantry slogged on towards the town quite why Gerhard hadn't used the road was lost to her but the closest Teutons, and the Carinthian cavalry, started to converge on her.

"Are we going to pull back?" asked Buber. He felt for a crossbow bolt and fed it onto the shaft.

"No," she said. "We're going to take them on."

Her horse had seemed entirely unconcerned by the pretty lights above its head, but started to shudder and twitch as a dozen Teutons came at them from one side, and the Carinthians from the other.

The northmen fired their arrows at her as they rode. That not a single one reached her didn't lessen their accuracy, nor their rate of fire. Each crack and rattle made her horse more wide-eyed and rasp-breathed, and more difficult to control.

Her saddle wasn't a stable platform any more, and she realised why the Order were wheeled into combat on wagons. She tutted at her mistake and swung her leg out and over, ready to dismount.

"Where are you going?" asked Buber. He raised his crossbow and took aim.

"Forget about that. Hold my horse and don't let go." She dropped to the ground and felt it shake under the impact of so many hooves. It was more than just a little frightening; she felt her stomach tighten and grow cold.

But she had been taught to ignore fear. She had managed to cast spells under the most extreme conditions. Will and knowledge. They were the only things that mattered.

The Teutons were charging. They had swapped their bows for swords. They were waving them wildly, and she heard Buber struggling to keep both his and her horses under control.

She fixed the leader with a knowing smile and fire ripped him apart. She didn't stop there. The flames spread out like a curtain pulled from the ground, and the Teutons at the front were unable to turn. They plunged into it and through it.

Nikoleta knew how hot the air was, how it seared and cooked. She had never before tried it on targets that were so wet, though, so she was unprepared for the result.

On first contact, the water had exploded into steam, ripping into the Teutons' skin, bursting out between cloth and armour, scalding their lungs. She had boiled them, men and horses, inside and out, and the results were ruinous.

They fell, half-formed, slapping to the ground, momentarily obscured in a coppery-pink fog, but then revealed as the rain beat down and the flames licked their last.

The very rearmost of the Teutons had managed to pull up. He was abruptly alone on his portion of the battlefield, facing a Carinthian hexmaster and ten Carinthian earls. He turned and galloped away as quickly as he could.

She lost her concentration momentarily. Her shield flickered and fell, and the rain pattered against her hat once more.

Buber, the earls, they were all staring at her. She gazed at the gasping, twitching shapes in front of her. One by one, they shuddered and ceased.

What did she expect? For her targets just to disappear in a puff of smoke, clean and neat? These weren't mercenaries, hired by some lord. These were invaders, and they'd killed already.

Chapter end