The Hidden Relic (The Evermen Saga, Book Two) (28 page)

"We've been over this," Miro said, looking across the field at the gigantic construct. The colossus made a nightshade look puny by comparison.

"Let's hope the animator is skilled indeed," Beorn said.

"We don't have another option. A runebomb is out of the question," Miro said, "too much essence for a single explosion. A colossus will take time to burn through the same amount, and is much more versatile. Plus, there's the effect on morale."

"Let's hope you're right," Beorn said. "I still fear for the infantry. Not a man among them has enchanted armour. The enemy's orbs will tear them to shreds."

"Not if my archers do their part."

Beorn didn't reply; he simply tugged on the grey hair of his beard.

"Beorn?"

"Yes, Miro?"

"We've come a long way. Whatever happens, it's been an honour having you by my side."

Marshal Beorn grumbled something under his breath that may have been a similar sentiment.

"Lord Marshal?" one of the four bladesingers came forward. "Where do you want us?"

Miro grinned. "As a bladesinger I always chafed at the restrictions the commanders gave me. Bladesingers need freedom of movement, and sticking to a post isn't our way. You are weapons, and you should fight wherever you feel you are needed most."

"Thank you, Lord Marshal," the bladesinger said.

"A tip, though," Miro said. "The colossus is central to our strategy. See that it makes it through."

"Of course." The bladesingers left, conferring among themselves.

"Are you going to address the men?" Beorn asked.

"Yes. Please form them up."

Miro was interrupted by a slim man in the
raj hada
of an Alturan courier running towards him, calling out. The courier carried a scroll, sealed with green wax and the seal of High Lord Rorelan.

"Lord Marshal," the courier panted, pulling up in front of Miro and Beorn. "The High Lord said it was urgent."

Miro swiftly broke the seal and read the contents.

His eyes opened wide as he read, his heart racing in his chest, and a thrill coursed up and down his spine. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes, tears that Miro didn't attempt to wipe away.

Miro rolled the scroll back up and turned to Marshal Beorn, who stared at him expectantly, waiting to hear the news. "Form the men up," Miro told him. "I'll speak to them now."

It wasn't the first time Miro had addressed an army this size, but it was the first time they hadn't been fighting a rearward action, pulling away from an enemy that could not be beaten.

This time, they were fighting back.

Miro knew how to speak to such a huge mass of men. He mounted the wooden podium, ascending until he was standing at its summit. Taking a great breath, Miro expanded his chest, projecting his voice, throwing it to the back of the field with all of his heart.

"Men! Defenders of the free world, Alturans, Halrana, and Loralayalanasa," Miro said. "You know why you fight here this day, and you know it better than I can explain it to you. You feel it deep in your hearts: that it's time to end the tyranny that has taken over the world, to break Altura free from the enemy's clutching fist, and to liberate Halaran from the darkness that has clouded over that fair land. You know why you fight, and so I won't try to tell it to you."

Miro paused, taking a breath and then resuming. "Instead I am here to answer the question that you are asking, but do not know the answer to. To put to rest any last vestiges of doubt, and to give you the courage and faith you will need to take you through this day, and the next, and to carry you forward, into the shining light that we can all see awaiting us at the end of these dark times."

Miro waited, feeling his heart thudding in his chest. This wasn't a speech he had rehearsed; he was simply speaking from the heart. Miro had fought alongside these men as a recruit and a soldier. They were his men, and he knew their fears, for they were his own.

"Will we win? That is what you ask, deep in your souls. You ask the same question now that you asked at Bald Ridge, when High Lord Rorelan and I held against a veteran army fifty thousand strong with less than five thousand. You ask the same question now that you asked when we faced an army infinitely greater than ours, here at the Bridge of Sutanesta. The answer is the same answer I gave you then. We will win!"

Amidst the cheers of the men as they held their swords in the air, Miro thrust the hand holding the scroll high so that all could see.

"And in the dark times that come, if you need heart, think of this. I have in my hand a missive from Rorelan, High Lord of Altura. A messenger arrived in the night. This messenger travelled through enemy-held lands, all the way from Ralanast, Halaran's capital, to bring us these words. He was captured but escaped, and when he arrived in Sarostar he was barely alive. Would you like to hear his news?"

"Yes!" It was a mighty roar, the sound of over fifteen thousand men, shouting with one voice. Miro didn't care now if his enemies across the Sarsen could hear. Let them tremble.

"There was a man who trained me, a man who trained every bladesinger. This man was the blademaster, the leader of all the bladesingers, and he fought at the Battle for Ralanast. You all know what happened there; it was the darkest day of the war.

"This man's name is Rogan Jarvish, and until now we thought he was dead, killed along with so many of our Alturan and Halrana countrymen. This is the news: Rogan Jarvish is alive, and he is in Ralanast. He is building an army there, under the very noses of the legionnaires and templars. There is no man I would trust more to see this thing through, and his message to me is thus. We are ready, he says. Do you hear me, men? We are ready!"

Miro drew his zenblade and held it aloft. The roar of the men followed him as he dismounted the podium, reverberating through the trees of the forest.

He turned to Marshal Beorn, surprised to see the grizzled veteran wiping at his eyes. "The old rogue," Beorn said. "I fought beside him at the Battle for Ralanast. I saw him go down, surrounded by a pile of enemy dead. Somehow I knew it wasn't the right end for a man like him."

Miro clapped Beorn on the back. "It is good news, the very best. Now let's go show the Black Army some old tricks, with a few new ones thrown in for good measure."

31

T
HE
attack began two hours after dawn.

The landing craft went first, carried upside-down on the arms of the men, who puffed and groaned as they ran towards the shore. From his command post atop a rocky knoll, Miro winced as he heard the popping thuds of the enemy's mortars, and a hail of orbs sailed over the river, through the air, and down on his men.

The flat-bottomed boats served a dual purpose here, for the majority of the orbs destined for the men landed instead on the craft. The enchanters had worked hard to build them as tough as possible with minimal use of essence, and the prismatic orbs exploded against the boats with little damage to the men underneath.

Then Miro's greatest fears were realised when he saw a black cloud rising from behind the towering wall, and at least a dozen dirigibles rose into the air, heading straight for the place where the boats were slipping off the soldiers' shoulders and plunging into the raging river. Even the rail-bows would be useless against the enhanced armour of the dirigibles' shells – it was the bows that were enchanted, not the arrows.

Miro's counter was weak at best, and as the enemy's dirigibles reached the middle of the river, the allies' sole remaining airship came into view, high in the sky above them. The massive net was flung out, weighted at the ends with balls of lead, and flew down to envelope four of the clustered dirigibles in its web. Tangled, the net and its prey continued to fall down and into the river. It was the best Miro could hope for, but it left eight of the black dirigibles ready to rain terror on his unprotected men below.

There were nearly a hundred of the landing craft, each carrying a maximum of eighty men, which meant that for Miro's army to cross, they would have to take multiple journeys. If the first wave was unsuccessful, the boats wouldn't be able to return. The second wave would stay on the wrong bank, and the brave men who first reached the enemy side were doomed.

Then Miro saw how low the Black Army's dirigibles were flying. It would improve the accuracy of their fire, and they were still high enough that nothing could touch them. Nothing except…

"Send in the colossus," Miro said to Marshal Beorn.

"The plan was to wait," Beorn said.

"Unless you have a better way to take out those dirigibles, pass the order."

Beorn passed the message, frowning, clenching and then unclenching his fists.

The thunderous shaking of the ground told Miro his orders had been followed. To his right, he saw the top half of the colossus, twice the height of the tall trees around it. The animator in his controller cage atop its head was bathed in glowing colours as he moved the massive construct forward. But it was slow, too slow!

All of the landing craft were in the water now, each filled with men wearing nothing but armour of steel and leather, and many with no armour at all. Miro could see the boats being tossed around by the vicious river, but they were crossing under a combination of paddling and poling. The second wave of men massed in orderly ranks on the Alturan bank.

The Black Army's dirigibles swooped low and prismatic orbs fell through the sky. Great eruptions of water gushed from the river, and immediately two of the landing boats exploded in flashes of fire as blood and the pieces of soldiers were thrown into the air. Another craft tilted too much as a series of orbs detonated in the water around it, and the river rushed in, capsizing the craft and sending the armoured men to their deaths as they spilled out.

"Come on," Miro pleaded, "hurry."

The colossus reached the riverbank. So much of their preparation had been for this moment. They had tested the idea on land, in the safety of the Dunwood, but on a wild river, in the heat of battle, was another matter altogether.

Miro knew the animator in the controller cage well. His name was Luca Angelo, and the Halrana said he was the best animator of them all. He had seemed a steady man to Miro, calm under pressure, and Miro could only hope those qualities would hold him in good stead now. If the plan was successful, Miro would honour Luca in whatever way he could. He knew, though, that all the man wanted was to be reunited with his family in Ralanast.

In their preparations the river had been scouted and the path mapped in detail. The great stone blocks of the old bridge were impossibly far apart, too far to bridge, and entirely under the water in most cases.

Would they be too far apart for the colossus's great stride?

Another rain of orbs from a dirigible took out two more boats, and Miro knew the situation was becoming desperate.

The colossus stepped out into the river, onto the first block they had mapped out. The gigantic form wobbled, and then the second leg came forward and the body swung, until the foot came down somewhere under the water and held.

Miro realised he wasn't breathing and tried to control the racing of his heart and get some air into his lungs.

The colossus took one more step, and then Miro saw a figure in green climbing up the construct, moving quickly from hand to hand as it reached the huge shoulder.

"That's a bladesinger," Beorn said.

The warrior's armoursilk suddenly blazed and the shining zenblade made Miro squint even from his position. The bladesinger leapt up and forward, the zenblade arcing through the air, and his fiery sword smashed into the side of a dirigible, cutting a wide gouge through the airship, before the bladesinger fell down and into the water.

The dirigible spun out of control and turned into another airship close by, before both spiralled down to come crashing into the water. A moment later Miro saw a Halrana soldier help the bladesinger into one of the boats.

The great bulk of the colossus again moved forward, and then the animator struck.

A massive hand swung through the air, swatting down a dirigible like it was a tiresome bug. Another swing and one more dirigible went down. The gigantic construct's footing was precarious, and Miro saw it wobble more than once, but Luca Angelo held, and in a moment the sky was cleared of the enemy.

"It worked!" Beorn turned, grinning at Miro.

The first of the landing craft reached the opposite bank. The soldiers jumped out and lifted their boat out of the water, turning it on its side. Orbs rained down on them, deflected by the bottom of the boat, but they waited. Soon a dozen more craft had emptied their loads of soldiers; in moments more than twenty side-on boats formed a protective barrier at the water's edge.

The allied swordsmen and pikemen disembarked from the remaining boats, joining their fellows rather than turning the boats up, leaving their landing craft to return to the Alturan side and fetch the second wave.

The bridgehead had been formed.

The second stage of the plan now went into effect. Miro's sub-commanders deployed the archers.

They filled the gaps between each boat that made up the defensive formation. As orbs rained down on the bridgehead, arrows shot out, targeted shots to take out the mortar teams and any of the enemy foolish enough to show themselves. The frequency of the explosions began to diminish.

Another landing discharged some of the Dunfolk, who added the volleys of their fire to the targeted shots of the rail-bows.

"Raise the blue lantern," Miro said. "It's time."

The order was passed, a signalling flag unfurled, and Miro's sole dirigible shone a fiery blue light. With the bridgehead becoming crowded as more and more boats were emptied, the colossus again lumbered forward.

"Please," Miro prayed. "Don't slip now."

The colossus reached the bank, Miro and Beorn both breathing a sigh of relief when it finally stood tall and unharmed on the solid earth to the side of the bridgehead.

The enemy now knew where to concentrate their fire.