Fire and Frost (Seven Realms Book 1) Page 4

  The cacophony of human battle assaulted Alaric’s ears. Men screamed in pain, or yelled their challenges. Horses whinnied and screamed. Metal clashed, and the sharp reports of gunfire signaled how seriously the humans were taking this battle.

  In a flash, Alaric assessed the situation. The Frost Fiends were outnumbered by the humans, but had apparently caught them by surprise, just as they had ambushed him and his companions all those months before. The men had tried to form traditional lines of battle, but they were ineffective against the vicious assault of the beasts. Now, the lines were broken. Alaric could neither see nor hear battle signals, meaning whoever was in charge of these soldiers had lost control. Without quick action, the entire human contingent would be slaughtered.

  “Kahji, can your men get me through the fight and behind my people’s lines? I can still rally the troops if I can get signals going again!”

  Before the War Leader could agree or even provide acknowledgement, Alaric had his hands in his borrowed gauntlets and was rushing toward the engagement. Left with little choice if he intended to deliver his charge in one piece, Kahji barked orders to his own soldiers and chased after the young human. He and his personal guards quickly overtook Alaric and began escorting him through the battle.

  Quickly, it became apparent that they weren’t entirely necessary. As they came upon two Frost Fiends battling a knight, Alaric leaped and punched one with his now clawed fingers. He struck the beast in the neck. With a quick twist, he widened the holes he had made. Before the claws could be coated in frost, he pulled them back. The monster exploded into shards of ice, nicking his face. Relieved of the necessity of defending himself from two opponents, the knight struck the remaining fiend on the head. The heavy head of a mace crushed its skull, and it shattered.

  Without waiting, Alaric rushed on further into the melee. Next he came to two pikemen fighting for their lives against three of the fiends. One still had his pike, which was less than useful since his opponent was already within reach. The other had either lost or dropped his pike, and had fallen back to his sword. The two feet of metal seemed a paltry defense against a being made of living ice wielding wickedly sharp claws at the end of arms nearly five feet long. Unfortunately for the Frost Fiends, they were taken by surprise by Alaric. Rage and determination, plus actually understanding the nature of his foe, more than made up for any physical disadvantage.

  Alaric charged in. His rage powered his arms as he thrust at two of the beasts. His clawed fingers shoved into their backs. Again he twisted his hands as he withdrew them. Again shards of ice nicked his face and neck. Before he could turn to the third, Kahji’s club had made its already short neck about two inches shorter. It exploded into another cloud of ice. The group kept running.

  In just a few short minutes, Alaric, Kahji, and the elite guard had crossed the entire battlefield. Smashing through the Frost Fiends like a rock through a window, they were death to their enemies and a bolstering presence to their allies. Before long, they reached the area where the commander should have been. His signalers were there, standing in grim defense, but there was no sign of the commander, probably a lieutenant or captain for a group this size. Whatever the reason for his absence, it was not a good one. Alaric put it out of his mind as he leaped upon a rock to survey the battlefield.

  In those days just before the ambush, Troye had hailed him as the best tactician since the Duke himself. In the next dreadful minutes, that would be put to the test. Within seconds he had discerned the original layout of the men. His best guess was that they had started with two companies of pike, one of musket, and one of heavy horse. They had been arrayed in a standard flank-and-reserve formation with the pike men flanking the musketeers, and the heavy horse off a ways to be able to bring their greatest weapon, a cavalry charge, into play. It was obvious they were not expecting their enemy simply to be able to burst from the ground. In this scenario, the pikes and muskets were all but useless.

  He turned to the signal men, now freed from defending themselves by the brutal efficiency of Kahji and his guards. “Lift your horns! Recall the men to their lines!” he commanded over the din of battle.

  The buglers did not hesitate; they were simply glad that someone was in charge again. Raising their horns the played the notes. The clarion call of the bugles raised the hopes of every human soldier on the field. Quickly, the men began to reform into their ranks. Where they had been fighting lone battles of survival, men began cooperating. A man might sacrifice a strike that would end his own threat to give advantage to his comrade. Then, the two would turn against the remaining foe.

  Within minutes, the lines had reformed. They were still hard pressed. Pikes and muskets were not designed for close quarters fighting. Many had already dropped their longer weapons in favor of the short swords they all wore, but not all had. That was the next command.

  “Signal the close arms!”

  Again the bugles rang out. Those men who had been trying to maintain their original duties abandoned them for their swords. Designed for thrusting in close quarters, these weapons were much better suited for this battle.

  Alaric breathed a sigh of relief when he looked to where his cavalry had regrouped. Their lieutenant or sergeant had been wise enough to dispatch their current threat, and then withdraw far enough for a new charge.

  “Signal the cavalry to hold,” he commanded, and again the bugles sang.

  He surveyed the fight again. Now, the men were back in disciplined ranks. The fight had taken its toll; less than half of the footmen who would have started this battle remained. The cavalry had fared somewhat better, having lost only a third of their own men or mounts. Additionally, the Igni had joined the battle from behind. Caught in that vice, the Frost Fiends had a small selection of possible maneuvers that could save them. Which would they choose?

  “Chaos,” Alaric said to himself, as he considered what he’d seen from them in fights before.

  The Frost Fiends reminded him of Igni, if monstrously mutated and attuned to ice rather than fire. However, unlike the Igni, the beasts seemed to be more about individual combatants rather than groups. They were not soldiers; they were warriors. That meant they were unlikely to try anything devious. Or to expect it.

  “Signal the muskets to fall back, pike to remain where they are. Signal the horse to prepare.”

  As the commands blasted through the air, the battle seemed to shift. The middle of the human line did not waiver, but began an orderly retreat. Soon, a gap appeared in the middle of the line. Not understanding that the moves were planned, the Frost Fiends roared in savage glee and charged at the retreating humans. Besides their desire to kill anything they could, they also sought a way to get out of the flanked and exposed position.

  “Charge!” and again the horn rang.

  Soon the noise of battle was covered by the sound of twenty chargers at full gallop. The heavy horse rode in through the gap in the line and into the Frost Fiends like an avalanche. The sound of the collision was massive. Soon, the Frost Fiends were in retreat themselves. They turned and charged at the Igni, now desperate for escape. None was found there, either.

  The Igni had formed into their squads. They crushed small groups of the Fiends whenever they could. When the humans had formed their lines, the Igni had taken the chance to do the same. Now they brought forth their biggest advantage against their ancestral foes.

  The Igni are tied to fire. It is this nature that allows them such control over fire magic; even the lowest Igni knows some. As their rage and battle lust built, they brought fire with them. Up and down the Igni line, they burst into flames. These flames were harmless to the Igni, who feared no fire, but cut through the Frost Fiends. Waves of heat rolled off the Igni lines, slaying the beasts where they stood. So great was the heat that even some of the humans were overwhelmed and fell.

  Within moments of their desperate charge, the last of the Frost Fiends was dead. The frost in the air dissipated under the heat of the Border. The Igni paid
their own price, however. Exhausted from calling up their power in such a forceful way, many of them collapsed. It would be some time before they could move with their normal speed.

  Finally able to think beyond the moment, Alaric addressed the signalmen, “What happened to your commander?”

  CHAPTER 5

  Alaric led the remains of the human army back to Castle Dell. Still unsure what had happened to the commanding knight, Alaric wished to get back home as quickly as possible. As best he could determine, the man had suffered some kind of fit and run off blindly. Considering the rudimentary to nonexistent nature of the tactics used by the Frost Fiends, any competent commander could have held them with the resources at hand. The commander of the army, Sir Pierre la Gauche, was more than merely competent; he was thought to be one of the Baron’s better tacticians. Alaric was still unsure what was going on.

  On the flanks of the much reduced force marched the Igni. They had barely suffered any casualties during the second fight. Alaric and Kahji had agreed that they would secure the flanks and rear. The humans forming the van and center of the impromptu formation were in bad shape. Over half of the men had been killed. Most of the rest were wounded. Alaric only had five knights and fifteen footmen who were truly fit for battle.

  The march was slow. With so many wounded, the army was pushing things hard by making five leagues in a day. Alaric fought with himself nightly over the decision. One the one hand, patience now and a relatively gentle pace would ensure more of his injured men arrived at the castle well enough to be nursed back to health. On the other, Alaric felt something ominous was occurring, and wanted to inform his father as soon as possible. With his reduced force, he could not even afford to send off one of his battle-ready knights to carry a message. If the Frost Fiends appeared again, he would need every able-bodied man. Even then, the humans would be forced to play a defensive role protecting their comrades, while the Igni actually dealt with any threat.

  Nevertheless, the delay chafed, and he took to venting his frustrations to Kahji every night. “Ten more days at this rate. I could be there in less than a week if I set out alone.”

  “Certainly you could, brave one, but my duty is to protect you, which means my troop and I would follow you. That would leave your own men virtually defenseless. You and I both know that Frost Fiends are hardly the only danger this close to the Border.”

  “I know. I know! Could you stop being reasonable for five minutes?” Alaric’s weak smile proved he was at least half kidding. “I’m not going to go slipping off into the night. I’m just getting anxious. As far as I know, your messengers never made it to my father, and he thinks I’m dead. More than that, though, something very bad is happening here. La Gauche would never have left his troops in battle like that. As far as I know, he’s never even yielded at tournament. His loyalty to my father is unquestioned. So why did he flee? What could possibly have happened?”

  “Have patience. I’m sure that all will become clearer when you are returned to your father.”

  Despite Alaric’s irritation at the new duties suddenly thrust upon him, any who watched would agree that he performed them better than most. Every night he walked the perimeter at least twice, both to inspect it and to give words of encouragement to the men standing watch. He made sure to visit with the wounded to check on their conditions. Twice he called off any marching for the following day when some of the men took turns for the worse. One man died despite the best treatment the Igni could provide; the next morning Alaric led the simple service to commend him into God’s hands. He drove the cross into the ground in front of the cairn himself.

  Ten days later, they stood on the edge of the land the Baron claimed as his own fief. It would be at least two more days to the castle itself, but Alaric already felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He’d commanded units within larger armies before, and he’d commanded his father’s men in a Duke’s Tournament. He had never been responsible for overseeing men outside of combat, however.

  As they started across the Baron’s land Alaric began to feel something was amiss. Farmers should have been out tending to the fields. If as much time had passed as he believed, they should be bringing in the early harvest. Yet these fields were barren. They even seemed like they had been burned.

  When they came to the first village, Alaric’s heart sank. The village had been burned to the ground. The fire had been so hot, even some of the stones melted. Evidence of resistance was scattered about the scene. Here a broken spear stuck out of the ground. There an axe had stuck in a wall. Worst of all was the stench. Bodies had been burned here. Judging by the scene, some of the victims had burned alive, inside the buildings and hovels.

  Alaric’s mind reeled, rejecting the evidence his eyes presented. While everyone gaped at the devastation, he turned to his friend, “Kahji, this looks like a raid by your people.”

  “I know,” the giant Igni sounded subdued, “I cannot explain it. Certainly I know of no other troop that should even be outside of Infierno, and we would never strike against civilians without provocation.”

  “Stay close. Keep your troops on a short leash. Something tells me this was planned.”

  Alaric then turned to his hastily promoted officers. “Speak to your men. As of this moment they should be on their guard against anything, including the Igni. Kahji says it wasn’t them, and I believe him, but we all know what this looks like. While they’re to be on guard, however, I also don’t want any misunderstandings. They’ll keep to their own groups. If I find that any man has provoked a fight, or drawn a weapon unprovoked, I’ll erect the whipping post myself. Understood?”

  With a brief chorus of “Yes, sir,” the three turned to their duties. Trust didn’t come easily between the humans of the Firemarch and the Igni. It would take great discipline to ensure there would be no violent incidents.

  They stayed that day to investigate. Though they found no evidence which could prove the Igni innocent, there were many discrepancies between this attack and a normal Igni raid. As with the raids Alaric had been investigating all those months ago, this appeared to have had no purpose other than destruction. Igni rarely targeted civilian populations even during armed conflicts. Even then they did so only for clear tactical reasons or to plunder supplies. Both of these brutal realities of war were understood and even, to some extent, accepted. This kind of wanton destruction was not. Additionally, there were no signs of Igni casualties. For the Igni to have raided a village this size and raze it so completely, they would have left behind signs of the fight. Igni would not leave their fallen or wounded, but they would usually leave their gear behind, to lighten the load as the wounded soldier or body was carried back. That had not occurred here.

  That night, Alaric called his officers into his tent, along with Kahji. It was important to make sure everyone had the same understanding of events. It was also important to reemphasize that the current assumption was that the Igni were not responsible for this atrocity.

  “You’ve all seen the signs, and we’ve all fought the Igni before. I want to get your thoughts, but it appears to me that this is meant to look like an Igni raid, not that it is one in fact.”

  The first to respond was the new captain of his heavy horse, Sir Traim. Tall and broad, Sir Traim looked like he’d been in repeated fights with a hammer and lost. His nose would have been broad and flat, had it not been broken so many times. His eyes were sunken deep into his face, and his lower jaw jutted forward as though he was always belligerent.

  “I would tend to agree, sir,” he said. “I’ve fought the Fire Apes even more than you or your father, and this looks very close to their handiwork, but it’s not quite the same. For one thing, there aren’t enough bodies. When they burn a town this thoroughly, you can be sure they’ve caught all, or almost all, of the defenders. Those men would be burned, too. I see no evidence of that. In all, it appears a large number of people escaped, and that just doesn’t sound like the Igni. They’re usually much more thorough.”r />
  Kahji covered his bristling over the term ‘Fire Apes’ and added his own thoughts. “Beyond the fact I cannot think of any reason my people would do this, for a force to have stuck so deep into your lands would have required a major undertaking. No such had set out. It is almost as if someone were attempting to start a war between us.”

  After several minutes more of discussion, most along those same lines, Alaric called the meeting to a close. “It is clear we are more or less in agreement. The Igni are not to be blamed at this point. Go back to your men and make sure they understand. If any of them do not understand, then take the time to explain why we do not believe the Igni to be responsible. The men will be less likely to make mistakes if they understand why we believe the way we do.”

  The night passed slowly for Alaric. With so many unanswered questions, his mind would not stop for sleep. With so many things that could go wrong, he worried constantly. So it was that the night felt as though it took a year to pass. He gave up getting actual rest before the sun arose and went to check the perimeter.

  As he made his rounds, he would pause to speak quickly with the troops on guard duty. Words of praise were given when appropriate. He mostly gave words of simple encouragement.

  He ended his circuit just as the sun started rising. He found himself in front of the camp, facing the direction of his father’s castle. There, on the horizon, he saw a large cloud which alarmed him.

  At first, he could not understand his own misgivings. His near sleepless night had made him groggy. Adrenaline surged through his veins when his sluggish thoughts finally put the pieces together.

  There, on the horizon, was an army. It was coming this way. When it got here, it would find an apparent Igni massacre. It would also just happen to find a large group of Igni apparently holding just over a score of human soldiers prisoner. The chances of the commander of the coming force stopping to parley were slim.