The Unsound Prince Page 15

  The Beltainian line began to give ground. Ultrich watched it nervously.

  Now came the hard part. Some sections of the line had advanced more quickly than others. The infantry in the centre had hardly advanced at all against fierce opposition. But all sections had to fall back the same amount.

  The firecake devices had been dropped to the ground at the fall back signal, and Ultrich wanted the Beltainian troops well clear before he unleashed the forces within them.

  Gingerly, making sure he had them all, he picked up the devices with his mind. Then he began to heat them from the inside out.

  Splitting his mind into more than fifty trains of thought was an extraordinarily complex operation, and it was one he’d never attempted before. He felt the sweat gather on his forehead as his concentration levels soared.

  The war horns sounded again. The commanders of each section should now have surrendered fifty paces to the advancing Xaanian army. Some sections slowed, fighting hard to maintain their positions. Others gave ground quickly to make up the distance.

  Sudden rips appeared between the two lines for a moment. Open spaces that revealed a tangle of broken bodies, discarded weapons, and clumps of grass and blood.

  Then the line held, steady along its entire length.

  The firecake devices needed to reach a critical temperature, and it needed to happen soon. Already fresh troops on the Xaanian right flank were pushing the Beltainians back. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, the firecake devices did, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t have much effect if they ignited behind the Xaanian lines.

  Ultrich redoubled his efforts, and the centre of each device grew hotter. He realised it was different to working with living flesh, different to the winged creature on top of The Lion.

  He scrambled to find ways to strengthen the spirit energy inside each of the devices, but his progress was slow – and Yeltar's right flank was being pressed even further back. Ultrich was beginning to despair of reaching the critical point the documents had said was necessary.

  Then he heard more war horns. Through the sweat in his eyes, and the haze over the valley, he saw Yeltar’s standard carried into the right flank. The shock wave of added troops moved the line forward again. It steadied itself somewhere near where Ultrich wanted to be.

  Yeltar's presence in the front line, risking his life to make the plan work, filled Ultrich with fresh anguish. There had been times when his decisions as the Legatus had cost him friends, and sometimes they had cost him commanders he had trained and promoted himself.

  Such deaths were especially painful for him. He pushed himself beyond his limits to ignite the alchemists' devices. The valley receded as his vision narrowed, and everything turned into a blurry background.

  He couldn’t tell if the line still held, but it seemed to him it was taking too long for the eggs to reach that critical point. Every extra moment was agony. At the edge of his awareness he caught the cinnamon scent of another spirit walker. With a start, he recognised his son.

  He almost laughed. Rossi was turning up every time he needed help lately. He returned with fresh energy to the task of igniting the devices from the inside out, and a moment later the first one caught fire.

  The massive crump of its detonation stunned him with its savagery. He found his concentration weakening, then ground his teeth as he dragged himself back to the task in front of him. Another egg caught, and this time he ignored the visceral savagery of its detonation. He pressed on with those that were left.

  The immense strain on him was easing now. With each one that caught fire there were fewer left, and there was more of himself to give to the threads of spirit energy that remained. He felt Rossi wish him well, and leave him to it. Ultrich felt a moment's gratitude that the boy had been there, just in case he was needed.

  Two more of the devices went off in quick succession. Ultrich pressed the advantage home, building the energy levels in those remaining. There was a sudden and continuous roar, as a wave of detonations spread out from the centre of the battlefield. They rolled left and right in long fingers of fire.

  Finally, only three or four remained on the fringes. Ultrich stabbed savagely at them with his mind. They followed the others in a simultaneous explosion that overshadowed the others. It was an exclamation mark to the rolling thunder that had preceded it.

  The echoes died away, and suddenly the battlefield was completely silent.

  A ragged cheer went up from the Beltainian line, and it surged forward. The Xaanian soldiers, stunned by the force and savagery of the explosions, gave way. Their numbers had been decimated wherever the devices had been detonated.

  Knots of Xaanian resistance formed here and there, but they were soon overcome. From the triumphant surge of a victorious army, the Beltainian advance turned into an outright charge, and it turned into a rout for the Xaanian soldiers.

  Ultrich watched as the Beltainian cavalry finished the charge, and cleared the valley of stragglers. The Xaanian soldiers were run down and cut to pieces. It was the unarguable logic of war. Whoever was spared today could take a friend’s life tomorrow.

  The war horns sounded again, and the cavalry turned back from the pursuit. All across Taire Valley the Beltainian army began to straggle back to its camp. They were headed for the rows of tents and cook houses that adorned the flat land below Ultrich.

  He knew the soldiers' day was far from over. Yeltar would march them all afternoon and long into the night. He would take advantage of the Xaanian defeat to fall back to Thebes, and the positions already prepared there.

  It was a good plan, and Ultrich felt a quiet satisfaction at what he had done. He had been able to help a friend.

  Reluctantly, he heaved himself to his feet. He was exhausted, but that would have to wait. The battle for Rotor Valley Pass might already have started, and he was needed there.

  He bowed his head, gathering his strength. The sound of cloth tearing emerged from among the trees at the top of the hills. The exhausted troops didn’t bother to look up.

  ***

  Mudge studied the mountains ahead, while Senovila and Colma looked after the horses. Some of the Rangers found twigs for the Ranger cones, and others got on with the midday meal. Ochren stood beside Mudge while they tried to unravel the tangle of ridges and valleys ahead.

  “I think I see the start of the gorge,” said Mudge, pointing to a drop off from a major plateau. The drop off was too sheer to be the start of another mountain pass.

  Ochren nodded. He had fought in mountainous terrain often enough, and he could see the boy was right. Mudge had been telling him they were unlikely to get past the gorge without a fight, and he was worried about that.

  Elite Rangers were at their best deep inside enemy territory, with set, limited objectives. They weren’t trained to face off against unknown ‘Sarkosay’, whatever in the hells they were, and his instincts told him it was suicidal to go up against large numbers of anything.

  He had to admit there was one more thing. Rangers weren’t trained to fight creatures with spirit powers. Ochren wasn’t happy about that at all.

  He considered his options. Perhaps they could go round the gorge, but that would mean a number of days in the desert, where the cart could get stuck in the sand. The heat of the sun would be a problem too.

  He sighed. Being a head Ranger often led to unpalatable choices like this. He decided they would probably have to contend with whatever was in the gorge. He felt better about the decision when the rest of the travellers took the news calmly. Morale counted for everything when a team was on recon in strange lands.

  The midday break provided its own surprises. Mudge and several of the others sat along an old log on one side of the rough camp site. In the middle of the meal there was a sudden, if delicate, cough from behind them.

  Ochren was already turning, his sword leaving its sheath. Shyleen hesitated over an arrow she had already notched and drawn. Mudge turned slowly to see what she was looking at.

  “Ma
ster is busy?” said a voice from the shadows. Mudge squinted into the shade under the bushes. It wasn’t easy to see what was there, with the sun high and directly in front of him. Then something moved in the shadows.

  Mudge had rarely seen sprites during the middle of the day at Shaker’s Hope, but the ones in the mountains, he reminded himself, were different. This one had taken up a position in the darkest shadows it could find. Try as he might, Mudge could see nothing more than an outline.

  “Master is not busy,” he offered. He was uncertain if this was the sprite leader that had guided them through the mountains or not.

  “Sprites request Legatus boon,” said the sprite forthrightly. Mudge closed his eyes in exasperation. He hadn’t expected this request to be made so soon.

  There were enough unknowns in the gorge ahead without complications. Every day they were delayed might be vitally important to the survival of the Karnatic League. He sighed. It was some unholy law of events that problems turned up in groups, as if they enjoyed conspiring against people to throw lives into chaos.

  He braced himself. Since this was the way of things, there was no point in wasting time and energy bemoaning it.

  Senovila smiled as he saw the look on Mudge’s face. He had seen how unfair fate could be when he was a commander himself. Like his father, the prince was refusing to let these things unseat him. He was pleased with the boy’s attitude.

  “Prince Rossi acknowledges Legatus boon,” said Mudge quietly. He lifted one foot over the log, and stepped toward the shadows in the undergrowth. He knelt down in front of the sprite, and noticed it was transparent, even when he saw it close up.

  He waited for it to tell him what it wanted. As he listened, the barest hint of a smile appeared on his face. Then it vanished, as he clamped down on his emotions – but this was good news, there was no doubt about that.

  He had been unsure what to do about the Sarkosay in the gorge ever since he had known they were there. Just getting past the gorge and surviving hadn’t seemed enough. These things were agents of the evil that had risen in Xaan.

  His time with his father in the netherworld, chasing the twisted Sarkosay soul, had shown him that. It felt like the best way to help the League was to clear the gorge of this nest of vipers. The fact the sprite had asked him to do the very same thing was a fortunate coincidence indeed.

  “Spirit demons in gorge hold many sprite prisoners,” continued the sprite in its strange, disembodied voice. It was a voice very much in keeping with its largely disembodied self at the moment.

  “Sprites are forced to work for them. Many sparks of life return to sprite soul since demons come to this place. They come long ago, long time before Builders come.”

  Mudge wondered again if the sprites shared some sort of common soul. The way they all knew what one knew was uncanny.

  The long existence of the Sarkosay in the gorge was interesting too. If the sprites were to be believed, they’d been there since before the arrival of people in the area. Yet there were no records of Sarkosay at this spot, at least according to records at the Priatic School of Mystery.

  How had they maintained such secrecy over such a long time? They must have kept a permanent spirit veil over the gorge since they had first inhabited it. The more immediate question was when should the travellers tackle the gorge. It was already mid afternoon. The prospect of being trapped in the gorge at nightfall, if things went wrong, was not a pleasant one.

  Mudge assured the sprite he would do everything in his power to free the trapped sprites. He didn't tell it he also intended to end the Sarkosay presence there. The sprite bowed so low it seemed to be examining its toenails at very close range, then it faded from view.

  Mudge seated himself on the log again. He explained about the sprite, and talked about his conviction that the best thing they could do was clear the gorge of Sarkosay. None of the others looked happy at the prospect, but they were bound by oath to follow Mudge in whatever he did. It was Arnima who put the whole thing into perspective for them.

  "This is at heart a spirit war,” she explained, "and there’s little we can do to help Mudge with that. What we can do is keep him alive while he does what he has to do.

  “That's an achievable goal, and it's something Rangers do very well. Let's concentrate on that, and leave the bigger picture to those who know it best."

  Senovila was surprised. Arnima must have been listening when he'd been a commander all those years ago in the Xaanian army. He had used her then as a sounding board to work things out for his troops. And she was right. One person couldn’t win a war, but if they concentrated on doing their bit of it, the rest would take care of itself.

  He smiled. Though if one person could win a war on his own, this prince of the Monhoven line might just be the one.

  Mudge nodded gratefully to Arnima for stepping in on his behalf. He had talked to her on several occasions now, and the two of them were growing close. She’d lost weight, and got used to life on the trail, and taken to wearing the Ranger green for camouflage, as had Colma. It was hard to tell her from the others these days.

  The general consensus was that they should wait until first light the next morning to tackle the gorge. There was still a way to go to the entrance, and they would set up an evening camp further on.

  For a while they continued along the edge of the mountains, looking for a good defensive position for the night. Eventually they found one, and Ochren called a halt.

  The rest of the afternoon was spent preparing the camp site as a defensive position. Ochren wanted a place to fall back on if things got too hot when they entered the gorge.

  The travellers settled down to sleep later that evening. Ochren took the first watch. It wasn’t easy to sleep under the bright stars of the mountain skies, especially when a moon that was almost full came up over the desert.

  Mudge tossed and turned under his greatcoat. He still had no clear idea what to do about the gorge on the following morning. Was leadership always like this? he wondered. Was it always more guesswork than knowing? He thought it might get easier in time, and this reassured him. He finally drifted off into a troubled sleep.

  The Keeper Stone was waiting for him. He saw it standing upright this time, as tall as himself. It was radiating a soft light that carved away pretension and revealed truth. He wondered if this was its true form in the spirit world, then he decided it was a convenient shape he had given it in his dream.

  There was a moment of joining. He felt the Stone search through his memories for things that had happened since it was last with him. He realised it would always be looking over his shoulder like this, weighing his actions.

  He thought he detected a cautious note of approval.

  Then he realised it had also been busy on his behalf. He saw that it was now continuously aware of the Legatus. It had detected the strong emotional connection between Mudge and his father, uncomfortable though it sometimes was for the boy.

  He saw the Stone had been ready to take him to Taire Valley to help his father, but it had not been necessary. Mudge watched pictures unfold in his mind of the firecake devices creating havoc in the Xaanian army. That was a neat trick. He realised there was much about his father he didn’t know.

  The Stone showed him other things as well. It had worked out the strengths and weaknesses of the Sarkosay, and how he could break the control the evil in Xaan had over them. Then it wanted to show him something. He let it guide him through the gorge in his spirit form.

  The Keeper Stone hid him from red and black spirit energies that glowed among simple dwellings carved out of the rock of the gorge. Mudge would need to know all this in the morning, when the travellers made their foray into the place.

  When he woke at dawn, Colma had a hot drink ready for him. His friend’s devotion to Mudge, and to their journey to Xaan, was clear to see. He hoped they could change the outcome of the war, and protect their homelands from invasion. These were the hopes and ideals the travellers were fighting for
.

  Mudge remembered his dream about the gorge. Then he realised he had the ghost of a plan, but it would depend upon the Rangers buying him some time.

  TWELVE

  The camp prepared itself for the assault on the gorge in the cool of the pre-dawn. They moved silently. They were preparing themselves, mentally and emotionally, to risk their lives during the day ahead.

  Mudge felt the comforting presence of the Keeper Stone. He was going to need it today, and every bit of spirit skill that he had. The cart was soon loaded with the things they would be leaving behind, and hidden under some branches in a stand of trees. While the last of the preparations were being made, Mudge surveyed the gorge in his spirit form.

  There were no sentries at the entrance to the enormous gash in the mountains, and no life yet stirred within. The spirit veil had served the Sarkosay so well, for so many centuries, they had become complacent.

  All the better for us, thought Mudge, as he returned to his body at the camp.

  There were the muted sounds of an argument behind him, and Ochren hurried across to shut it down. This was not the time for divisions.

  "I will not stay behind with the cart," hissed Arnima. Senovila rolled his eyes in frustration.

  "I've been training," continued Arnima determinedly. She pulled a wicked-looking dagger from a sheath under her Ranger-green top.

  "And what do you think you're going to do with that!" snorted Senovila disparagingly. He unsheathed a sword that extended his reach by another arm’s length.

  Arnima's eyes narrowed threateningly. Shyleen stepped over to stand beside her.

  "She's ready," said the Ranger, looking Senovila squarely in the face. She was challenging him to contradict her. Senovila looked to Ochren for support.

  Ochren shrugged. It was up to each Ranger to decide when a trainee was ready. There was nothing he could do about Shyleen’s decision. Senovila threw his arms in the air and turned away.