Frays in the Weave

Hammer, part two

"Wait, wait, now! Eagles in the air! Regroup behind banners!"

Out of the forest came groups of soldiers, sometimes alone men.

That's not possible! Where did they get enough battlemages to hurt us that bad? Trindai gasped at the condition the emerging soldiers were in. This wasn't a staggered retreat. Those men had been soundly routed, and only the massed lines of a friendly army could hope to return a sense of safety to the broken men. That and the banners of the Imperial Guard raised in the air.

"Sound the horns. We take our chances," he ordered.

The colonel next to him threw an unhappy glance but relayed the order anyway.

Trindai had to hope the enemy in pursuit would mistake the horns for a futile attempt by the routed enemy to rally on the other side of the forest. The way the fleeing men looked it could as well be one, he accepted darkly.

"This had better work," he growled at the outworlder by his side.

"You just get the bastards this way and I'll handle the killing," was the chilling response.

Revenge, what a bad reason for going to war. We sold them the revenge, so we're no better. Trindai didn't respond. The outworlder was a civilian. Some kind of mining expert who had lost his family to the outworlder attack on Verd, and now he took out his frustration and hatred on an enemy he had never seen.

Finding not one but several men and women from the newly arrived sky kingdom had come as a surprise, but they were as mercantile as Keen herself. Knowledge was money, and so they had taught themselves De Vhatic in preparation for coming here. Not everyone, of course, but enough knew the language that it was impossible to herd them the way they had contained the outworlder traders the last ten years.

Sounds of horns brought Trindai out of his thoughts and he turned his attention to the forest. If the men came as scattered as they did he was likely to have to order the killing of their own. Well, he had done so at Verd, and he would do so again to finish the war here and now. They had waited here for the better part of a day, waited and prepared for a battle the enemy hadn't known would take place.

Outworlder talk machines gave an advantage that was almost impossible to value. Farwriters didn't even come close.

He heard yells of fear and a few of surprised joy. Some of the fleeing men must have noticed they had friends waiting for them on this side of the trees.

The disorganized horde of men quickly melded into units as they dashed for the promised safety, and after them cavalry arrived from among the trees.

One young officer came running straight at Trindai.

"Demons, they're demons!" he screamed.

Trindai looked at the youth. Too young by several years. Money should never buy commissions. "At attention!"

"General!" came the reply, and with it a visible straightening of his back.

"Get your men here and stand!"

"But, but they're demons. They used magic against our staff masters!"

Trindai gulped down his shock. He couldn't afford to show his men his true feelings at this moment. "I don't have staff masters." A lie. "I have the Imperial Guard." A truth. "We stand."

And they did. It helped that the panicked flight turned into an organized retreat. It gave the Imperial Guard time for two full volleys, but the young officer had been right. The enemy horsemen glowed as they sang their way through combat. Inquisition squads throwing themselves into the thick of combat made no difference. They went down just like any other soldiers, and the staff masters failed to remove whatever magic shielded the enemy from quarrels and sabres alike.