The Starfollowers of Coramonde (39 page)

It was late
forenoon when the distant sound of drums and cymbals came. The men in the
fortress knew they were under siege. Awnings were snatched down with wispy
haste from the lances supporting them. The orderly confusion of preparation was
carried out in seconds. Springbuck led his men out again, shifting his grip on
his lance, settling and resettling his shield on his arm. His supple mail had
become uncomfortably warm.

The sunlight
had become acute, wincing-bright. As always, the
Ku-Mor-Mai
had
sharp-eyed aides nearby to inform him of anything his own poor vision might
miss. The castle’s drawbridge dropped. Southwastelanders came out with a
whooping and howling, whirling scimitars and longswords over their heads in
gleaming circles, their lances carrying many battle streamers. These, prisoners
had told Springbuck, were Baidii, men of a race that, unlike the Occhlon, had
lived in this region throughout history, longtime retainers of
Shardish-ku-Salamá. They were fewer than a thousand, so Springbuck gave the
order that one-third of the elements left to him stay back in reserve.

The Baidii
came in thick groups, not the precise alignments of Coramonde. Their panoply
featured flaring ridges and much scalloping; their headdress-helmets were
upholstered with silk and linen and leather, to shed heat. The northerners
found intervals and spacings and continued a slow advance; the
Ku-Mor-Mai
wished to conserve his horses.

When he saw
the gap was small enough, he gave the word and touched spurs to Fireheel. The
gray shot forward as the battle flourish blared. Visors clanged down, lance
points aligned with the foe, and rowels went into flanks. In each man’s mind
the wide valley became an arena, his own corridor of it filled with a thousand
perils and possibilities. Fallow yellow earth was gouged by flashing hooves as
horses, scenting combat, lengthened stride.

Springbuck
felt the eroding confidence he always knew before mass combat. His imagination
was too vivid not to toss up scenes of his death.

The two
groups crashed together. The weightier men of Coramonde bore through
lighter-armored Baidii. Lances hunted for direct routes past shields; many
found them. The uproar came, compounded of neighs and screams, jockeying hooves
and striking steel.

Men kept to
their standards as best they could, the Coramondians with more discipline than
the Southwastelanders. They went together over and over, zealots of war.
Springbuck’s spear turned from an hourglass-shaped shield, the Baidii’s own
lance sliding from his. They came around and went at each other a second time.

The
southerner, perhaps thinking the
Ku-Mor-Mai
lacked skill or heart, swung
his lance in the long, side-sweeping stroke that could only be used safely on
an inferior opponent. Springbuck knew what it meant about the man’s estimate of
him. He grasped his spear with conviction, tightening at the last moment, and
struck just when he should, clamping knees to Fireheel and keeping his seat in
drill-field style. His foe’s longer, side-on stroke hadn’t reached him yet.

The son of
Surehand slipped his point past the hourglass shield. The lance struck through
the man’s pauldron and drove him back off his horse, Fireheel’s speed and power
delivered along its shaft. The weapon, fixed in the Baidii’s chest, was torn
from Springbuck’s grip. He looked around; the fight was about even. The Baidii,
more lightly armed, were born to the saddle, masters with lances. But now the
moment of the lance was over, most spears being broken or left in an enemy’s
body. Men of the north worked with heavier broadswords, picks, maces and axes.
They could take and deal greater punishment, and that decided the melee.

Springbuck,
with Bar drawn, kept close by his standard, trying to watch what was happening.
The sabre was busy, as Springbuck made the acquaintance of the southern
scimitar. He dealt a thrust, standing in his stirrups as Fireheel battered,
teeth bared, against a southern charger. He never heard the braying of the
ram’s horn that called the Baidii to break off battle.

They withdrew
in good order, too fast for the jeering men of Coramonde to catch. The enemy
commander had seen all he wished. Now he’d consider his next move, letting
Mother Desert do his work in the meantime.

Coramonde
carried its dead and wounded from the field. The clash hadn’t lasted ten
minutes. Springbuck had the southern dead dropped at the far end of the valley,
just out of bowshot of Condor’s Roost. The few Baidii wounded who hadn’t
managed to withdraw with their fellows asked, and were given, the grace-stroke,
knowing they were of no further use to Salamá.

The full
weight of the sun’s glare came down. The northerners spread awnings again and
found or made what shade they could for their horses. Waterskins were passed.
The
Ku-Mor-Mai
was forced to order that men conserve water, for their
own and their mounts’ sakes both. There was no fuel for fires, but they were
content to dine on cold food and talk of victory.

The sun soon
had them loosing their armor. Springbuck allowed it, but forbade any man to
remove his panoply. He himself stayed fully ready, though he wanted nothing
more than to lie in the shade with a little something to drink. Instead, he
squatted with his buttocks on a rock and a scrap of silk draped over his head,
plumed war mask on the ground at his feet. It would take more men to settle a
true siege. If Brodur and the rest were long delayed, this effort might end in
disaster. He rose presently, and went among the injured.

Late that
afternoon three scouts came back. They’d found what they thought to be a
roundabout way to the pass where Hightower held, but it could only be
negotiated by descending a cliff face and climbing another. Springbuck took
aside a dozen men of Teebra, who were at home hunting and fighting on rocky
crags. He ordered them to contact the Warlord, whatever it took to do so. Other
scouts reported no water sources or alternate routes past Condor’s Roost.

Night came
on, and the Trailingsword. Springbuck shivered in the darkness, still surprised
at how cold these sun-broiled lands could become, calculating the time it would
take the rest of his corps to arrive. Seven days, with luck? More like ten, or
even fourteen, if they met intense resistance. He commanded that all water be
put under a senior captain, whom he designated Water Officer, and rationed out
each day to the leaders of the various elements under him.

Wind rustled
sand against his heels. Now he perceived that other enemy, ally to the
Southwastelanders. How many men, he asked himself, had Mother Desert vanquished
before she’d come to grips with him?

Springbuck’s
vision wouldn’t keep focus. It hadn’t come to his attention before, because
rising waves of heat played with every image meeting the eye in the inferno
that was midafternoon. As always, the sky was burned a cloudless blue.

It was the
eighth day following the battle before Condor’s Roost. Rations of water were
down to sips per day. Men stinted their energy, not moving much. They ate
lightly; dry, parched throats made it difficult and left even greater thirst in
the wake of food. Everywhere, horses stood with drooping heads under awnings
the men had been forced to erect to keep the sun from them. Unused to the
desert’s oppression, some of the chargers had already died. The animals, too,
were on drastically short water allotments. The last of the oats and feed had
been eaten days ago. Now horses dined on what their masters could spare.

The desert
furnace sucked strength from the
Ku-Mor-Mai
as he sat. His lips, like everyone’s,
were swollen, cracked and peeling. His tongue moved viscously in his mouth;
talking was an increasing effort.

Gabrielle was
in the improvised tent he’d had fashioned for her. She’d regained much of her
strength, but her arcane energies were gathering to her more slowly. He’d asked
if she could help their situation, but after an evening of effort, she’d
confessed that she could avail little. Condor’s Roost had been imbued with its
own wards and defenses against occult assault. She would be able to penetrate
them, given time, but not soon enough to be of use. Her one attempt had
endangered her with total collapse.

In another
day or so, Springbuck knew, there’d be no option but to try frontal attack,
unless it was to try to get through the pass at night, past now-vigilant
Baidii. He’d sent a second group of mountaineers, two days before, to ask his
Warlord if they oughtn’t withdraw completely or link up, but had received no
reply. He had to presume the message had never arrived. It mattered little now;
they’d never make it back through the desert without water. Their only chance
of getting some lay in making it through the pass or, if they could get into
it, in Condor’s Roost. For the latter, he’d lost most of his hope.

He damned the
delay in his reinforcements, more by rote than in passion. Vultures rested in
the heights, waiting for the carrion due them from their Mother Desert. Several
men had tried to catch one, to drink its blood, but the birds were wary, and
the
Ku-Mor-Mai
had ordered it ceased, to preserve energy. That had been
yesterday; now he didn’t have to command anyone to keep still. His men were
surviving on their last reserves. Before evening, he must make some decision.

His bolder
subordinates counseled storming. But there were no rams, no towers or ladders
or catapults, few archers, a total absence of cover and little stamina. Still,
that was rapidly becoming the only option.

He heard
cymbals and shook his head, thinking his hearing had been affected. They came
again on heat-distorted air, with the paying out of heavy chain. He dragged the
silk from his head and got unsteadily to his feet, shaking men around him and
pulling them to theirs.

The gates of
Condor’s Roost were opening, its drawbridge lowering across the dry,
stake-defended moat. Springbuck went to Fireheel, whose head was lowered in
unaccustomed indifference. The big gray barely responded as his master climbed
clumsily into the saddle. But then Fireheel snorted, and livened somewhat.

Men were
scrambling ahorse now, awkward with haste and depletion. They fell in, not the
same iron warriors who’d ridden so fervidly against the Baidii that first day.
Mother Desert had daunted them.

Gabrielle
stepped from her tent. Seeing Springbuck, she half-raised her hand, as if she
would have waved, then let it fall. He’d had a horse prepared and left for her,
with some water and a few provisions. It made him less despondent, thinking
she, at least, might leave the valley alive. With the camp so crowded and
privacy so scant, he’d avoided her. Now he wished, too late, that they’d
spoken.

There were
more Baidii today, he saw, supposing the garrison was out to end the siege at
one blow. Perhaps Hightower still had the southern route sealed; Springbuck no
longer cared, hoping the old man would find some way to get south with what was
left of his unit.

The
Southwastelanders formed ranks more carefully this time, archers at the rear.
Springbuck had his men drawn up, but knew they could never charge. The horses’
endurance was gone; they could only save what moment’s vigor might be left, and
deal with the Baidii at close quarters.

The
Ku-Mor-Mai
wondered if the rest of his army, if it still existed, would be stopped, to end
the expedition against Salamá entirely. He was bitter; Salamá had done well
against him, while he’d barely gotten to strike.

The Baidii
advanced, undulating eerily in the heat waves. Men of Coramonde readied
themselves, but didn’t move. Springbuck took one last look around, execrating
Mother Desert. His shield dragged at his arm; chain mail weighted him. Men
around him hoisted their swords and bucklers; there weren’t many lances left
among them.

The Baidii
hit like a flash flood into a hapless orchard. For dozens of the Coramondian
chargers it was the last exertion. Unable to cope with heat and dehydration,
their hearts failed and they fell even as they tried to answer the bit one last
time.

The surge of
battle sparked hidden remains of Springbuck’s endurance. He met his foe with a
good, accurate strike. The man’s falling weight dragged the lance from his
hand, and he yanked out Bar. He was glad the enemy hadn’t stood back for an
archer’s duel; the Southwastelanders wanted to repay their injuries sword to
sword, a transaction Springbuck welcomed.

They filled
the plain, losing formation, gathering to this or that banner to go against
some other. The Baidii were darker and leaner than the Occhlon, burned by
centuries in the oven of the desert. They were ready to retest themselves
against the invaders. Men of Coramonde responded with cold fatalism, taking
whatever strokes or wounds they must, patiently waiting out their chance to
lash out again. The Baidii, out to prove they could stand their ground against
the northerners, found that in truth they couldn’t. Their pride and confidence
in Mother Desert had brought them to grips with tenacious, dogged enemies.
Springbuck and his men, accepting that they were to die, were borne up by that
terrible emancipation.

Fighting was
ferocious and all-encompassing. The Baidii, in their vanity, ignored the drums
that ordered them back. If they hadn’t, archers could have sent showers of
steel-headed death at the northerners. But arrogance won; the Southwastelanders
elected to stay and test their mettle.

Springbuck’s
arm began to ache, something that hadn’t happened to him since he’d been in
training as a boy. More and more northern horses were dropping from exhaustion.
Everywhere, men of Coramonde began to show signs of final fatigue, but struck
in heavy, killing blows that clove light desert armor and dark southern skin.
Blood from both sides covered the thirsty sand and splashed on horses’
fetlocks.