"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.
Trindai understood why the planned retreat through the forest had become a rout. He turned. "Outworlder, use your devices now or the day is lost." And turned back again so as not to have to meet the eyes of the man he had ordered to butcher soldiers indiscriminately.
"As you will."
Nothing happened. "What are you waiting for?"
"Which, sir?"
Trindai sighed and stared at the madness ahead of him. "All of them. All," he whispered.
"I didn't..."
"All of them!"
The sound threw the horses into a panic. One moment the narrow field between Trindai's reserves and the forest was a moving mass of fighting bodies. The next there was only dust and earth and a whiteness rolling over them like a hammer. Then silence, and from that silence the sound of moaning emerged.
The outworlder-made fog slowly dissipated and he saw shadows of men staggering around, most of them trying to come to their feet but far, far to many only shaking or rolling on the ground. Whatever had shielded the enemy didn't protect their horses, and Trindai watched as a few of them fled the field. Several of the beasts rolled impotently on the field just like the fallen men they crushed as they flailed about.
"Dagd regiment. On foot, daggers and sabres. Finish this!" He turned away from the slaughter. Dagd fielded as professional a regiment as any from Verd. They would make certain the men they murdered were clad in leathers only. The De Vhatic soldiers would be carried to the waiting medics. More would survive than he deserved.
A few hovercraft carried outworlder medics with outworlder equipment, and he needed as many of the enemy dead as possible before he allowed their sky kingdom allies onto the field. They had been adamant on treating all wounded on equal terms, but there were simply not enough of the miracle doctors even for Keen's wounded.
Trindai shook his head. This was why he commanded the army. He knew that, but it didn't make him less disgusted.
"I want Roadbreak and Hasselden through that forest now! De Markand needs us." He waved his staff to his side. "De Tenerius, you're in command here. I'll lead the reinforcements. Rephrase!"
"I handle the mopping up here. You can be found due east of the forest with Roadbreak and Hasselden regiments in case we need to get your sorry ass out of there."
Trindai grinned. General de Tenerius sometimes took the rephrasing too far, but he never misjudged a command. If there were more of the shining cavalry on the other side the enemy could still win the day. At least their horses weren't invincible, and if they stopped singing they went down like normal men.
They marched through the narrow forest. There was no reason riding trough it. Between the trees men and weapons lay littering the ground. Daggers, broken spears or dropped quarrels worked just as well as caltrops, and they had to tread carefully.
Trindai could see where the retreat had turned into a rout. Then they were through the trees and he ordered his men mounted again.
To his north he saw the enemy staff, and he ordered his few surviving staff masters to screen their approach. The high ranking enemy officers wasn't his problem. Walking Talking had promised a last surprise. Trindai concentrated on his part of the dirty work.
"De Markand is still holding out. We bring the anvil to the hammer. Line up and report when you're ready to charge!"
***
"You knew!"
"I did," Ken answered instead.
Arthur wheeled. "You?"
"Yes, but Panopilis knew about the military part. I believe it's been orchestrated from Verd since we met de Markand and his men."
That part Arthur understood, had in fact suspected, but for some reason he'd assumed Ken didn't know. Something nagged at his mind. "The military part?"
"Yes. There was one thing I had to take care of. They really don't belong here."
Arthur glared back. "That stinks of involvement," he said. He stared at the newly arrived forces slamming into the broken enemy. He wasn't an expert, but even he could see that this battle was over. Still, the enemy command was intact, and almost all of their battlemages still stood in orderly groups.
"Soon," Ken said.
"What are you talking about?"
"Soon. I think, yes here they come. I thought the detonations would show them the way."
Now Arthur could hear it as well. The wailing of hovercraft arriving from the east. A few moments later they arrived and he recognized them.
"Are you insane?" He fumbled for his handgun. "I'll kill you myself! You led the bastards here?"
"Shut up and learn!"
Arthur watched the Federation flag growing larger and larger as it carried his death closer. Even from a distance he recognized Brigadier Goodard's banners. There was something strange. He ripped the field glasses from Ken's hands and put them to his eyes.
"Bloody hell! Ulfsdotir!"
"Who?"
"She had my family killed."
"I'm sorry. I didn't know."
Death came closer, and Arthur laughed. He had wanted revenge, but now he knew he no longer cared.
Then the hovercraft veered north, and Arthur swore he could hear a woman's wailing. "No! Wallman. I want Wallman!"
The Federation vehicles passed so close he could see the hatred in her eyes, but the soldiers were blind to him. He could as well never have existed at all. They stared north, and they sang hymns.
"What have you done?" he gasped at Ken.
"Nothing. They are of one kind. It had to happen."
Arthur stared at the hovercraft manned by Federation soldiers surrounded by an inhuman halo, and far to the north he saw the same whiteness surrounding the enemy commanders. Alone Christina Ulfsdotir stared back as she frantically tried to get the attention of the soldiers on her hovercraft.
Arthur looked at her. She had personified fear for him, and he had hated her for so long he almost forgot what it had been not to hate, but now he could only feel sadness. He had, he admitted, taken from her first. One year here had taught him about honour, and now he finally understood how stolen honour could result in a deadly reply. He would never agree, but at least he understood, and as the hovercraft headed for battle he realized he'd once again stolen something from her.
Around them silence fell over the battlefield. Moans and screams of pain cut through it, but the sound of war was gone. Those unharmed, or at least only lightly wounded, were too fatigued to be enemies any longer. The Midlands' soldiers still on the field just stood, a few still holding their weapons as support to lean on. The De Vhatic troops didn't care. They were soldiers no longer, only spectators.
Arthur gasped when long strands of fiery death flew from the battlemages, coiled around the charging hovercraft and dissipated without inflicting any harm.
Federation guns hammered in the other direction with little more success. Whatever that glaring light surrounding the combatants was it protected those covered from magic as well as modern weaponry.
Then, as the opposing sides closed, the battle split into personal duels, and Arthur stared aghast at the swirling lights of madness. What he saw was less a battle than mutual destruction. No quarter was given, none asked for, and slowly the frenzied attacks wore down the shining protections of both sides.
When the death toll rose most of the battlemages decided they had had enough, and they deserted their commanders in the middle of battle. One by one, or in small groups, they either ran for the forest or just vanished. Arthur thought those around jump mages to be the luckier ones, because squadrons of the surviving inquisition soldiers were already galloping for the trees in pursuit of the fleeing mages.
There would be another fight to the end, but that one, Arthur guessed, would be a lot more one sided. Mages feared the inquisition as much as they hated them, and for good reason. A handful of staff masters had successfully shielded the De Vhatic soldiers from most of the war magic thrown at them.
His attention was abruptly caught. Several loud detonations rolled over the field. From the northern end a huge ball of flames grew into the air, and then another one, and another.
How anyone had been able to survive that was beyond him, but when the smoke cleared he could see a few figures still standing. To his astonishment they didn't seem to notice the destruction but fell at each others throats with a ferocity that spoke of pure rage and fanaticism.
"I think we can leave now," Ken suddenly said. "It's over and I don't want to be part of the mopping up."
Arthur glared back. "You have a lot to explain," he said.
He received a nod.
"But not now, I guess?"
Another nod.