Part 28 (1/2)

'And unless the Dasati are total idiots,' added Alenburga, 'they won't let themselves be drawn into a cl.u.s.ter like that again. I won't guess how they think, but if I was their commander, I'd be plotting how to get my own cavalry into the fight.' He let out a sigh. 'It's been a long day.' As the sun lowered in the west, he asked, 'Do we know if they fight at night?'

'We have no intelligence on that,' answered Kaspar.

'Your young Jommy is right. We cannot make a.s.sumptions about how these creatures think and act.' Alenburga turned to those officers waiting behind the three senior leaders of the Empire's army and said, 'I want the field cleared of the wounded as quickly as possible, and I want defensive positions erected even faster. We will act as if we know another attack is coming after sundown.'

Another attack came after sundown.

In the vast tunnel, Pug held up his hand and they waited, listening. He had given himself the responsibility of moving ahead of the vanguard as an advanced scout, because he was, except for Magnus, the most powerful single being in this invasion force. Magnus had been stationed next to Valko and told to protect him at all costs.

There had been a constant background sound as they entered the tunnel, and it had got increasingly loud as they pa.s.sed near tunnels that Martuch said led from the palace complex to the Black Temple, in a rough latticework fas.h.i.+on. It was hard to put the name to the sound, but it caused Pug's skin to crawl.

Pug motioned for the force behind him to move along, and over a thousand Deathknights loyal to the White came forward, moving with deliberate haste. No one knew for certain exactly how long the palace guards would be occupied with the slaughter of the city's vast population, but this attack had to be conducted before any significant number of them returned from this mission of death.

Pug detected movement ahead, and felt his pulse race as he antic.i.p.ated, at long last, a direct confrontation with the Deathpriests who protected the TeKarana. While preparing for this raid, Pug had asked Valko and the others for as much information as they could provide about what they might encounter. It proved to be sketchy at best. Little was known beyond this old, abandoned sub-bas.e.m.e.nt complex attached to the closest access to the TeKarana's private complex within the Great Palace. The TeKarana was served by a thousand dedicated Talnoy Pug didn't feel the need to share his knowledge of the real Talnoy still hidden on Midkemia, or that these were merely men in armour that looked like the ancient captured G.o.ds of the Dasati. He lived in a community almost completely isolated from the rest of the beings on this planet. He had his own staff who were separate from the larger palace staff of Effectors, Facilitators, Interlocutors, and other minor Lessers, and a harem of females chosen from the better houses in the Empire. There had never been any record of his acknowledging a son. Moreover, it was unclear when this TeKarana had taken over from his predecessor and how. Rumours abounded, but no one knew the truth of it. It was suspected that one of the planetary Karanas would be selected to replace the ultimate leader when it was time, but no one outside the innermost society of rulers on this world knew exactly how the system worked.

Pug reached what appeared to be a dead end, a blank wall of the ubiquitous black-grey stone used as the primary building material in the Empire. He motioned for Valko to approach and said, 'Is there a way in or do I have to break it down?'

Valko seemed impressed, for the first time since meeting Pug. 'You can break this down?'

'Not quietly.'

Valko actually smiled, the first time Pug had seen him do so. 'No, there is a way.'

Martuch and Hirea came forward and the three of them spread out and placed their hands on the wall, feeling for something that Pug could not see, no matter what aspect of his magic-enhanced sight he used. After a few minutes, Hirea reached low and triggered a mechanism. There was a deep but surprisingly soft rumble and the ma.s.sive wall rolled into a pocket on the right, revealing another pa.s.sage leading up.

'This way,' Valko said, and Pug and Magnus entered the pa.s.sageway, towards the palace.

Nakor held Bek back. Bek was dressed in the strangely disturbing armour of the Talnoy, a look very familiar to Nakor from the time he had examined ten thousand of the things hidden in a vast cavern on Midkemia, an experience bordering on the mystical. But there was nothing remotely mystic about these Talnoy, for each was simply a fanatic, loyal to the TeKarana, wearing ancient armour. The red-trimmed black armour of the palace guards was far less ornate than the gold-trimmed monstrosity now worn by Bek, and both were far gaudier than the real Talnoy armour Nakor had seen. It was as if the Dark One's servants had felt the need to be more impressive in appearance than those they had replaced.

Nakor had heard the summons to the palace before Bek could respond, and had simply ushered his young companion into an alcove off a storage room, as hundreds of Talnoy guards hurried to answer the call. Bek had not questioned Nakor's instructions, but Nakor could tell he was getting restless after sitting silently in this tiny room for hours. Softly Nakor said, 'Soon. They'll be here soon.'

'Who will be here, Nakor?' asked the hulking young man.

'Pug and the others.'

'Then what will we do, Nakor? I want to do something.'

'You will be able to do something soon, my friend,' whispered Nakor. 'It will be something you like a lot.'

Miranda could feel the fatigue threatening to overwhelm her, yet she forced herself to cast one more spell of scrying. Then her eyes opened wide and her head jerked back as if someone had slapped her.

'What is it?' asked General Alenburga. His eyes narrowed in his sunburned face as he studied her.

'That hurt.'

'What hurt?' asked Kaspar of Olasko.

'They've erected some sort of... barrier against scrying inside that thing.'

Two dozen additional magicians had gathered since the end of the first phase of the battle, just before sunset, and they were a welcome sight when the Dasati started their second a.s.sault an hour after sundown. The Tsurani had used a different tactic this time, convinced that the Dasati would not err again and try to charge a fixed position where the Tsurani could surround them.

Alenburga had ordered a company of Tsurani engineers who had arrived towards the end of the battle to erect as many barriers as they could across the opening where the river trail emptied into the plain. The Dasati could still come through, but not in numbers unless they first stopped to remove the barriers, or tried to swim downriver.

Then a dozen heavy ballista and a pair of trebuchets were unloaded from the wagons and erected, just as the Dasati again advanced down the trail. As their vanguard reached the end of the trail, Tsurani archers high in the hills overhead fired down on them, every fifth arrow being aflame, while those operating the trebuchets hurled huge barrels of flammable oil into the pa.s.s. The barrels each held fifty gallons of oil, and they were designed to disintegrate on impact, spreading the oil in every direction. It took a few minutes for the fire to begin in earnest, but after it caught hold began, it quickly erupted into an inferno that forced many Deathknights into the river where they were pulled under the fast-moving water by the weight of their own armour, or helped to their death by Tsurani spearmen who used their long pole-arms to hold the Dasati underwater as they attempted to reach either riverbank.

After an hour of this, the Dasati beat a hasty retreat up the path.

Now they were attempting to antic.i.p.ate the Dasati's next move, hence Miranda's attempted scrying. 'I was never very good at that sort of thing, anyway,' she said.

The four young captains were waiting nearby, all of them showing evidence of fatigue. Zane was nearly asleep on his feet and Tad had to nudge him a few times to keep him alert. General Alenburga noticed and said, 'Pa.s.s the word to stand down. Set pickets at the edge of the hills, a mile in each direction, and we'll wait. Find whatever comfort you may and get some rest.'

The four young officers hurried off to discharge their duty and take a break.

Alenburga said to Miranda, 'I don't have any idea how you do what it is you do, but you look as if you could sleep for a month. Go. I have a tent set up a mile or so to the rear. There's food and a sleeping pallet there.' He detailed a soldier to escort her, and added, 'My thanks to you and the other magicians. I doubt we'd be standing here if it wasn't for your amazing skills.'

Miranda gave him a wan smile. 'Thank you. If you send for me, I can be here in minutes.'

Alenburga cast his gaze in the direction of the Black Mount. 'I doubt we'll be hearing from our new friends before dawn. They may see in the dark like cats, but we've given them a lot to think about.' As he watched Miranda departing with the escort, Alenburga said to Erik and Kaspar. 'That's what I'm the most worried about.'

'What they're thinking?'

'Yes,' said the General.

Erik said, 'Something occurred to me during this last struggle.'

'Out with it then,' said Alenburga. 'You don't strike me as the shy type.'

Erik smiled. 'I didn't want to speculate until I saw if they were going to come at us a third time.'

'What is it?' asked Kaspar.

'Why make the second attack? All they have to do is hold us outside the river pa.s.s, keep us some distance back, and eventually that sphere is going to encompa.s.s this area and they can strike out in any direction. More to the point, why go to the trouble of creating all that slaughter in the first place? Why not just keep expanding the sphere?'

Alenburga ran his hand over his face. 'My eyes feel like I've got a desert's worth of grit in them.' He looked at Erik first, then Kaspar. 'There are a lot of questions I have no answers to.' He paused, then said, 'How did the Kingdom defeat the Tsurani in the first place, is one.'