The Starfollowers of Coramonde (40 page)

At last
Springbuck drew back, telling his standard-bearer to follow. He meant to
withdraw what men he had left, and form a last line. A cry went up from the
enemy, to see the remaining banners carried back, clustered in desperation.
There were no more than eight hundred northerners against half again that many
Southwastelanders. Springbuck had no brave words, and couldn’t have shaped them
through his swollen throat if he had.

The sun
seemed to be burning its way through the back of his war mask. With it came
eerie calm. The son of Surehand thought a lobster might feel so, in the pot
where it meets its boiling end. The Baidii came on again, though their officers
forbade them halfheartedly. The Southwastelanders were ordinarily well
disciplined, but now they were at retribution, not war.

Men of
Coramonde, stirrup and stirrup, withdrew step by slow step, backing their
horses. They surrendered one hundred yards over the next quarter-hour, the
hardest fighting Springbuck had ever seen. Suddenly patience and common sense
ended. Death was the only coin in which he cared to traffic.

His
standard-bearer was resisting the mandates of wounds that must, the
Ku-Mor-Mal
knew, claim him. Springbuck snatched his crimson tiger banner, throwing aside
his crumpled shield to take it up. Fireheel, feeling his rider’s moribund mood,
pushed forward. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
voiced a challenge through his tortured
throat and went among the Baidii, with the sword called Never Blunted hewing
his way.

Behind him
were men of Teebra. In the custom of their tribes, they threw down their own
shields, drew out the heavy short swords that hung at their sides, and
accompanied their Protector-Suzerain with bright blades in either hand. In a
moment the entire remaining force had cast itself after him.

Springbuck
slashed and drove, dully curious. From which quarter would the final enemy
come? Then he felt a certain change in the tenor of the engagement. Dismayed
cries spread through the southern ranks from the rear.

Up from
behind them came a frost-haired giant on a coal-black desert charger, and the
men who’d stood at the pass with him, weapons rising and falling with fresh
enthusiasm.

The Baidii,
outraged at what they took for some warped deception, turned to fight on this
second front. The
Ku-Mor-Mai
collected the men left to him and held his
ground. Many Baidii ran. They couldn’t imagine what kind of maniacs would fight
until they were nearly obliterated, for a military deceit. They didn’t know
Springbuck and his men were as surprised as they.

In time the
onslaught stopped, Hightower faced Springbuck as yellow dust settled, and the
younger man slowly considered the fact that he was still alive.

Springbuck
pushed himself from the saddle and half-dismounted, half-fell. Sitting there,
he wrenched his war mask off with a sigh and threw it from him. Many others did
the same, blinking as if awakening from sleep.

Hightower unhorsed.
He offered the Protector-Suzerain a scrap of dampened cloth and Springbuck drew
it across his tortured lips, squeezing excess water into his mouth greedily.
Only then did the Warlord offer him a short drink from a small skin at his
belt. There were other waterskins; Springbuck’s troops thronged to be next to
drink.

“How?” was
all Springbuck had the strength to wheeze.

“Not easily,”
conceded Hightower. “Come to your feet and walk a bit. ’Tis improper for a
leader to sit about when his men have not been seen to.”

“It isn’t for
this one,” Springbuck husked, in his abused gullet. Still, he let the
white-maned hero pull him to his feet.

The story
came in starts and stops as Hightower gave orders for them all to withdraw to
Condor’s Roost. He and his few hundred had taken it. He sent a detail to fetch
the wounded and bring Gabrielle.

From his
position, the Warlord had looked down at preparations for the sally out of the
fortress. As Hightower had known he must, the opposing commander had stripped
his command to put together the force he needed. The Warlord had, in preceding
days, readied scaling ladders for this time. That confused Springbuck, who’d
seen no trees worth the name.

“Well, I know
something of war,” Hightower admitted, “and old ideas sometimes serve.” Using
long, stout lances, he and his men had bound up serviceable ladders with
climbing ropes and strips of leather cut from empty drinking skins and their
own gear. Springbuck later saw one, with cleverly leather-hinged tripods for
legs.

“But still,
those walls are so high,” he said.

“Aye, high
and hazardous. But I evened that considerable with another rockslide; it took
us days to prepare that. We had long lines on the ladders to steady ’em, but
two toppled anyway and I lost men. The walls cost us too; these Baidii are men
for a fight, regular razors when they are aroused. Someone was drumming for the
men out there on the field to retreat, but they thought it had to do with the
fight in front of them, so they kept at it from pride. We took the horses we
needed, and here we are. Are you fit to ride now, my Lord?”

They all rode
or limped or carried one another to the fortress. Motionless bodies on the
ramparts and in the bailey attested to the heat of the struggle to take
Condor’s Roost.

The
Ku-Mor-Mai
stayed awake long enough to command that the injured be tended, the dead
buried, scouts sent out, guards posted, horses cared for and all the other
things that would have been done anyway. There were drinking spigots and
troughs, and men crowded by these and waded into them, too weak to rejoice,
dousing themselves and gulping reverently. Hightower posted some of his own
troops to make sure no one made himself sick.

Springbuck
trudged off, leaving Hightower in charge. He found at last the quarters of the
enemy commander, who’d died resisting the Warlord’s sally, and bolted himself
into it. It was set off a cool courtyard, shaded and quiet. Water trickled from
a fountain into a cool, green basin. He plunged his head in, and his crackled
skin ached wonderfully. He drank slowly, then filled a goblet from it.
Torpidly, he stripped mail and gambeson, boots, vambraces and sword from his
body. Cool air began to lift the reek from his naked skin.

He lay down
on a couch, unclothed to the fragrant breeze that came through the fretwork.
With a last sublime sip from the goblet, he fell asleep.

The lock-bolt
slid back softly on its carrier, obeying a disembodied will. The door opened
silently on oiled hinges. He flinched awake, sweat covering him, alarm on his
face.

Gabrielle
stood there, looking down. She regarded the bruises, cuts and lacerations, his
sunburned face and raw, split lips. She studied his eyes in their hollow
settings. She drew the sash from her waist and opened the burnoose, shedding
her clothes like white plumage.

He hid his
questions from himself and took the moment as it occurred, fearing that if he
spoke it would elude him like an evaporating vision.

She joined
him on the couch, for a passage at love that proved their flesh had forgotten
nothing. She drew away as much of his pain, healed as much of his suffering as
lay within her province to do.

In time she
told him, “I came south with him long ago, Springbuck, when Hightower was all
in his prime, and together we strove. From the best motives he presumed to
overstep the things the Bright Lady had said we might accomplish. For that he
was made blind. Hightower remembers what he and I had between us then as love,
and who am I, who owe him so much, to deny it? Yet loyalty and indebtedness are
not love; and I understood that when the traps almost took you from me in the
Gauntlet.”

Afterward he
slept. She rose, took the billowing robes and left him, closing the door softly
after her. Condor’s Roost was aswarm. She found Hightower where he was in
conference with subordinates. He saw what had happened from her expression; she
discerned no disapproval in his. She stood near him, taking his hand, her head
on his arm. They communed unspoken grief.

Hark! from the tombs a doleful
sound

Isaac Watts

Hymns II

EXCEPT for those duties
considered indispensable by Hightower, the army rested and tended its wounds
for two days. They slept, bathed, ate and slaked their thirsts with as much
water as they wanted.

Condor’s Roost
kept a bulging pantry against time of war. They dined on unfamiliar southern
dishes; jellied meats, shrimp in sweet syrup, spits of highly garnished goat
and dog, and honeyed parrot. Debris was cleared away from the pass to open the
way south. There was sufficient manpower to rotate crews frequently, so no man
had to work more than an hour or two each day.

The fortress’
forges came to life, as northern smiths began reshoeing those horses needing
it. Gear was being repaired, food and water supplies readied. Springbuck threw
himself into preparations, determined to keep the appointment of the
Trailingsword. There were now two weeks left in its seven times seven days.

On the third
day following the end of the siege, he was called to the ramparts. Hightower
was there, shading his eyes against noon’s punishments; he showed the
Ku-Mor-Mai
where, at the end of the valley, a column of fours had come riding. An alarm
was made. This could as easily be bad news as good.

When the
newcomers were halfway down the valley and the fortress’ walls crowded with its
former besiegers, sharp-eyed watchers began to call the blazonry that was
arriving, the snarling tiger’s mask. But there were many others, more soldiers
than there’d been in the sundered element. Springbuck directed that the gates
be kept closed and the drawbridge up until they had proof that this was no
ruse.

Another
device could be seen, a green unicorn. Gabrielle strove to see who was under
that flag. The end of the column appeared, the four war-drays of Matloo, and
Springbuck’s misgivings began to subside. Another emblem was visible, a raised
fist holding a length of broken chain, showing Freegate was there.

On the open
ground outside Condor’s Roost, there were unexpected reunions. Brodur was there
right enough; Hightower thumped him on the back like a proud father, for having
brought his men through. With the Scabbardless was a haunted Andre deCourteney
bearing Blazetongue on his hip, and Reacher, King of Freegate with his sister
Katya and Edward Van Duyn and allies in thousands. But it was clear that they’d
been through bitter battles.

Andre saw
that Gabrielle already knew the very worst tidings he had for her.

The arrivals’
formation dissolved rather than being dismissed. They pitched camp in the
valley, with the men of Coramonde giving what help and hospitality there was.
The newcomers had fought all three of the races who served as military arm to
Salamá. Now they rode with Odezat war banners for saddle blankets, and jeweled
Baidii daggers or Occhlon scimitars hung from their cantle guards. There were
profusions of bright silks covering such armor as they chose to wear. Still, it
was clear enough that this was an army in retreat.

After the
disaster of Ibn-al-Yed’s Gauntlet, Brodur had decided, in concert with
Drakemirth and Balagon, to skirt the Demon’s Breastwork at its southwest end.
He’d sent word of what had happened back to the city of the Yalloroon, then
begun a forced march.

But not all
bad luck had come to light by that time. There’d been survivors, apparently, of
Hightower’s very first skirmish, and they’d managed to escape to the west.
Occhlon and Baidii, massed all through that region to repel the landings they’d
expected after losing the Isle of Keys, had made an instant move to throw
Coramonde back into the ocean. The ships from Seaguard had stood out to sea,
safe for the moment, with the remaining troops and the Yalloroon aboard, and
Brodur’s messengers also. There’d been no time to get word back to the
Scabbardless.

The following
day, the Mariner fleet had come on the scene, propelled by winds called up by
Andre deCourteney. When matters were sorted out, Andre had decided to go on,
making his landing nearer the end of the Demon’s Breastwork, where he could
rendezvous with Brodur. The vessels from Coramonde were to stay on station off
the city of the Yalloroon, in case any part of their army attempted to withdraw
in that direction.

But Occhlon
trackers had evidently picked up Brodur’s trail, though he was unaware of them,
and the bulk of the southerners had gone after him. The Scabbardless was moving
as quickly as he could, not knowing how well or ill the
Ku-Mor-Mai
had
fared beyond the Gauntlet. As he’d neared the end of the Breastwork, his scouts
had begun to pick up signs of a Southwastelander ambush. The trap had been
directed the other way; Brodur had nearly blundered into it from behind.

Reacher’s
army was coming down from the northeast. The southerners were laying the sort
of trap they preferred, built around the water holes and oasis at the end of
the Breastwork; strategic ground was of less importance to them than control of
water. Reacher, in search of both a way south and water for his army, had been
led by the terrain straight into the ambush; even his Horseblooded outriders
had failed to discover it. But Brodur had struck from the enemy’s rear,
dislodging the Odezat, Salamá’s mercenary divisions, from their positions. The
engagement had lasted a day and most of the night, ending in the annihilation
of the Odezat and the linking of the two northern armies.

With that
Andre deCourteney had arrived, looking for one ally only to find two. He’d
given his news to them, and scouts had confirmed that the major part of
Salamá’s army was coming on from the west, with the four or five men for each
Crescent Lander.