Part 47 (1/2)

Badalamen had cut a trench across his front, by night, and had camouflaged it.

The legions. .h.i.t the tangle before the riders could extricate themselves. Half the knighthood of the coastal states and the Lesser Kingdoms perished.

Badalamen circled the debacle, rolled toward the hills. Ragnarson began falling back.

”I warned you,” Varthlokkur said.

”Warned me, my a.s.s! You could've been specific. d.a.m.ned wizard never says anything straight out. Come on, Klaust. Get those men moving.” He studied a map. ”Hope we can ferry the Scarlotti. Else we're trapped at Dunno Scuttari.”

The sun hadn't been up an hour. Radeachar, till now occupied deporting savan dalage, brought his first scouting report.

The legions in Tamerice weren't. They were racing north, having begun at sunset, and now were just ten miles away. They might beat him to the far side of the woods.

The withdrawal became a rout. Bragi desperately tried to keep control, to blunt the legions from Tamerice. The Guildsmen and his Kaveliners responded, but hadn't enough strength.

Their effort prevented total disaster. Most of the army escaped. Half reached the Scarlotti, where Ragnarson regained control and ferried them over.

Thousands of escapees joined Kildragon, who fled toward h.e.l.lin Daimiel.

Legions pushed south as far as Ipopotam, leaving enclaves at Simballawein, h.e.l.lin Daimiel, Libiannin, and Dunno Scuttari. The garrisons hadn't the strength to sally. The Itaskian Navy ran supplies in, as it had done during the sieges of the El Murid Wars.

Badalamen brought reinforcements through the transfers. Valther identified elements of seven legions not seen at Baxendala.

Badalamen beefed up the force in Vorhangs while facing Ragnarson across the Scarlotti near Dunno Scuttari. Blackfang strove valiantly, but hadn't the resources for success. He lost a battle at Glauchau, just three miles from Aucone. Agents of the Nines betrayed him. Haaken led the survivors westward.

Weeks pa.s.sed. Late summer came. Though Badalamen drew heavily on transfers, most of his supplies and replacements came through the Gap. Again Ragnarson fought for time, trying to survive till winter isolated Badalamen.

The born general gathered boats and exchanged stares with Ragnarson. His Vorhangs expedition hammered Haaken back toward his brother.

The holocaust had come. Badalamen's auxiliaries erased towns, villages, crops.

Winter's hunger would decimate the survivors.

Then Varthlokkur and Mist came to Ragnarson.

He stared guiltily across the broad Scarlotti, repeating, ”This's my fault.”

”Marshall, we've made a breakthrough. The biggest since Radeachar.”

Bragi could imagine nothing capable of brightening the future. ”You've compelled Itaskia to move?” Itaskia's nonin-volvement stance was a bitter draught.Varthlokkur chuckled. ”No. We've found a way to scramble the transfer stream. We can intercede whenever they send.”

”Oh? How long before they figure out how to stop you?”

”When they create their own Winterstorm.”

”Maybe tomorrow, then. They're working on it. Because of the Unborn.”

Varthlokkur smiled dourly. ”He has orders to obliterate anybody researching it.”

”Do whatever you want. Got to play every angle.” Bragi turned, stared across the gleaming brown back of the river. How long till winter closed the Gap, giving him a chance to regain the initiative?

The Battle for the Scarlotti Crossing began with a ma.s.sive, surprise thaumaturgic attack at midnight. The western army got badly mauled before Ragnarson's wizards reestablished the sorcerous stalemate.

By then legionnaires had landed. That, too, was a surprise, Bragi had antic.i.p.ated Badalamen s.h.i.+fting his emphasis toward Haaken. Comimg straight into his strength seemed suicidal.

It was. For a time. But superior training, superior skills, gradually told.

Earthen ramparts grew around the beachheads. Ragnarson's counterattacks, hampered by a haphazard command structure and language barriers, fell short.

Haaken, just four leagues upriver, reported himself under heavy pressure. Several legions had crossed above him, marching into Kuratel.

Daylight exposed the grim truth. The frontal attack was a feint. Badalamen's main force had moved upriver.

Ragnarson saw the trap. The bridgeheads. They were weak enough to destroy, but strong enough to last days. If he yielded to the bait, a pocket would close behind him.

He had been outgeneraled again.

He offered his resignation. His allies and a.s.sociates just laughed. Hawkwind suggested he get moving before Badalamen reaped the fruit of his maneuver.

Badalamen hadn't wanted to attack. Not here. The old man had been adamant.

Failure of the transfers had made quick victory imperative. Winter was a foe he could neither manipulate nor coerce.

Bragi took command. He set Hawkwind and Lauder to confine the bridgeheads. He sent help to Haaken to secure his flank, and flung his remaining hors.e.m.e.n after the spearhead plunging into Kuratel. His vast, confused ma.s.s of infantry he led in retreat again, up the Auszura Littoral, out of the pocket.

He adopted the Fabian strategy again. The Porthune crossings he cleared and abandoned without contest. Itaskia became his goal, winter his weapon of choice.

Legions caught him near Octylya. In the absence of Badalamen, Ragnarson proved he had some talent. He sucked them into a trap, beneath his bows, and annihilated twenty- five thousand legionnaires. But he didn't grow heady. He persevered in his strategy.

In early October he crossed the Great Bridge into Itaskia the City, where he, Mocker, and Haroun had spent much of their earlier lives.

Reskird Kildragon had problems. Some of the Rebsamen faculty were agitating for accomodation with s.h.i.+nsan. It surpa.s.sed him.h.e.l.lin Daimiel had withstood years of siege during the El Murid Wars. Those defenders had never lost spirit. And that enemy hadn't planned to obliterate them.

Kildragon couldn't convince the dons that Badalamen was truly destroying everything and everyone outside.

Chance had separated Prataxisfrom Ragnarson at Dichiara. Now he was Kildragon's a.s.sistant. He came to Reskird one autumn evening, pale as old sin.

”I've found the answer. Our own people....”

”What?” The inevitability of failure had eroded Reskird's patience, making him a small, mean man, all snarl and bite.

”A Nines conspiracy. Here. At the Rebsamen. I stumbled on it.... I was on my way to see my antiquarian friend, Lajos Kudjar, about the Tear of Mimizan. I overheard an argument in the Library, in the east wing, where they keep....”

”Skip the travelogue. Who? Where? How do we nail them?”

”In time, my dear man. This has to be handled properly. They have to be exposed carefully, every one identified. Else we risk turning h.e.l.lin Daimiel against us.”