Seventh Decimate Read online

  He did not add, And their gifts have too many limitations. Instead, he concluded grimly, “That is why we are here. Today we will test our fate. We will learn if we can accomplish what sorcery cannot. If there is hope for Belleger, it rides with us.”

  Every man in the squad knew what he meant. They had spent a year training for it. Still, the weight of Prince Bifalt’s assertion silenced even Flisk. Abruptly, most of them stirred, unable to rest longer. As dawn spread down from the opposing heights into the lowland of the battlefield, the soldiers began to re-count the arrows in their quivers, or test their bowstrings, or sharpen their sabers one more time, or check the contents of their satchels.

  Soon they would be able to see their enemy clearly.

  Then a muffled voice warned them Captain Swalish was coming.

  After all their training together, the Prince knew his Captain well. Scarred and burly, with the shoulders of a wrestler and the legs of a man who stood his ground, Swalish was not a man who tolerated disrespect. He obeyed orders himself, and expected his to be obeyed. At the same time, he knew what his soldiers were about to face better than any of them except Bartin. Experience had taught him when to tighten discipline and when to relax it. In addition, he was not a tactician. He understood what his squad had been commanded to do, but he was not entirely sure it was reasonable—or even possible. And—a further difficulty—his habit of submission to Belleger’s ruling family ran deep. Prince Bifalt’s presence in the squad made Captain Swalish uncomfortable.

  As he approached his men, the Captain glared as if he meant to lash them for not leaping to attention. But when he reached them, he hesitated until he caught Prince Bifalt’s eye; until he saw the Prince’s slight nod.

  By that time, the soldiers were on their feet.

  “Listen well,” began Swalish. “Even you, Bartin.” The effort of compensating for his doubts made him harsh. “Soon we will ride into hell, where better men than you have died between one heartbeat and the next. I will have the hide of any man who ignores our orders.

  “You know why we are here. You know why you were chosen. You know why we have done everything in secret. You know what we must do. I will tell you again.

  “For the first time, we will let Amika see our rifles. We will let them see what rifles can do. You were chosen for this duty because you are skilled riflemen. But you—we—are too few to turn the battle. We do not have enough guns to turn any battle. What we will attempt is a test. We must know whether rifles can kill Amikan sorcerers.

  “Hear me,” insisted the Captain fiercely, although he kept his voice low. “Our task is not to fight. It is to win through. That is why we ride in threes,” twenty men and Swalish himself. “To make a way for each other. We must survive Amikan sorcery, Amikan tactics, Amikan cavalry. We must breach their lines. And we must do it without revealing our guns. We must keep our purpose hidden until we are in range of the ramparts where the Amikan sorcerers stand.

  “Then we will shoot. We will do what we can to drop those theurgists. If we can kill enough of them—hells, if we can kill any of them—in the next battle we will be able to repay generations of Bellegerin blood.”

  Like his comrades, Prince Bifalt held his rifle in front of him, hardwood stock under his elbow, barrel pointed safely at the sky, showing Captain Swalish he was ready. His pulse beat a fighting rhythm. He was not afraid to die. He was not a man who flinched or shirked. His courage was proven. But he could admit to himself that he was afraid to fail. If his homeland could not be saved with rifles, it could not be saved at all.

  “Do I need to add,” rasped the squad’s commander, “that the enemy must not be allowed to capture any of our guns?” Camwish, Nowel, and others shook their heads. Unnecessarily, Captain Swalish explained, “That is the only exception to our orders. We are allowed to shoot if that is the only way to keep our rifles out of Amikan hands.

  “More than that, I have only this to say. Any man whose rifle misfires because it has not been properly cleaned and tested will not be punished. He will already be dead.”

  His soldiers had trained hard. They knew a veiled order when they heard it. In the sun’s rising light, they removed the loaded clips from their weapons, confirmed the pressure of the springs that advanced the cartridges, then unlocked the breeches, checked the action of the triggers and bolts, squinted down the long barrels. With practiced precision, they relocked the breeches, replaced the clips. Then they went through their satchels, counting their spare clips, assuring Captain Swalish more than themselves that the clips were loaded.

  “Right,” said the Captain. That was as close as he ever came to expressing approval. “You know your threes. You know your place in our lines. It is time to mount. Protect each other. Protect your guns. Succeed if you can. If you cannot, return alive. I will not be amused if you compel me to train more men.”

  Only Elgart laughed, a humorless sound quickly stifled. Around him, the squad formed its teams. Captain Swalish and a big man named Malder, a natural brawler, took Flisk between them, protecting the young man’s inexperience. With Gret and Jeck, Prince Bifalt followed the horse-master Camwish toward the pickets where the mounts waited.

  As the Prince walked, blood beat like music in his veins. He did not relish killing his enemies, but their deaths were necessary. Belleger’s extremity justified him. Amika’s attack justified him. What his heart craved, however, what he burned for, was to shoot sorcerers.

  In every generation, they were few. Most men were born without the gift to wield incomprehensible powers. Nevertheless, they were mighty. Their sorceries were enough to start the war—and to block both Belleger and Amika from victory. Without the aid of theurgy, Belleger would have been erased as a separate realm long ago. Its remaining people would have been forced to live their lives under the dominion of Amika.

  Prince Bifalt believed all sorcery was dishonorable: worse than unfair or dishonest. A Magister could conceal himself in perfect safety while he killed ungifted men, ordinary men, by the dozens. People without the talent for theurgy were helpless against sorcerers. Every act of sorcerous power was an atrocity.

  Yet Belleger could not endure without sorcery. Magisters were essential to the realm despite the way they dishonored whatever they touched.

  But if the riflemen’s tactics proved effective, Prince Bifalt might live to see the day when every Amikan theurgist was dead. In another two or three years, Belleger could make more than enough guns, hundreds of them, thousands. Then Amika would be defeated. King Abbator’s people would be able to savor their natural lives at last, as men and women and families should. They would have no need for Magisters themselves, and would be content without them.

  If there were no sorcerers, a man like Prince Bifalt might finally have the right to an honorable life: a right he could not afford now because his homeland was assailed by theurgy. The rifle he carried was his own hope as much as Belleger’s.

  With his comrades, he went to his mount. When he had tested its girth and tack, and had murmured a few comfortable words to the warhorse, he secured his rifle in its plain leather scabbard, where it would rest unseen under his thigh until he needed it. Then he surged into the saddle, holding the reins in one hand, his bow in the other.

  Arrows would be his first weapons. He might require every shaft in his quiver. Then he would have to rely on his saber—and on Gret and Jeck—until one or two or all three of them broke through the Amikan lines: until he or they neared the high wall of boulders, the ramparts, that closed the far side of the valley. After that, he would be free to draw his rifle; and the true worth of King Abbator’s eldest son would be measured.

  It all came down to rifles, every hope, every future. But not to simple muskets, single-shot guns that wasted an eternity of fighting while they were reloaded. Repeating rifles. Prince Bifalt knew more about their discovery and development than any soldier of Belleger. The secret was stringently
guarded. But as a member of his father’s inner circle, he knew the name of the alchemist, three generations back, who had discovered the composition of gunpowder, aided by a sheaf of brittle papers found in an old trunk: papers written with fanciful diagrams, peculiar recipes, and obscure terms. He knew the names of the skilled iron-wright and the famous jewel-smith with whom the alchemist had shared his discovery. The Prince even knew the name of the apprentice who had been wounded when the three men had succeeded in using gunpowder to expel a lead ball from an iron tube. The King who had learned of this accomplishment, foreseen its possibilities, and imposed a severe secrecy on its improvement, had been Prince Bifalt’s great-grandfather.

  The work that followed had taken a long time. The subsequent kings and their advisers had scorned the use of any gun that could not match an archer for quickness. In addition, the obstacles to be overcome were unprecedented. Guided by the original alchemist’s papers, Belleger’s blacksmiths, iron-wrights, and jewelers were able to devise, first, the cartridges that held both gunpowder and bullet, then the breech that secured the cartridge so the triggering mechanism could spark the gunpowder, and finally the bolt action that ejected the spent casing and accepted a new cartridge. These innovations they were able to effect within a few decades.

  Unfortunately, shaping iron for the barrel posed a more daunting problem. Year after year, the barrels ruptured themselves, or exploded the whole gun, when they had been used once or twice, or perhaps three times. No forge in the realm burned hot enough to harden the iron. Muskets, by comparison, were simple: their barrels had time to cool between shots. But muskets could not save Belleger’s people.

  Eventually, keeping the process secret became easy. Its failures made it seem trivial, too pointless to prolong curiosity among people who were either numbed or ruined by the enduring costs of the war. Only the succeeding kings of Belleger kept faith with Prince Bifalt’s great-grandfather’s vision—and they did so only because they were desperate.

  This impasse persisted until one blacksmith in despair was inspired to consult a Magister. Their long experiments proved that the Decimate of fire could enable any forge to shape barrels durable enough to withstand the stress of rapid shots.

  The fact that his hopes, and Belleger’s, depended on sorcery made Prince Bifalt bitter. He accepted the contradictions of his position only because the stakes were so high. The plight of his people made nagging questions of honor meaningless.

  Mounted now, and eager because they could not afford fear, Captain Swalish’s threes formed a wedge in the center of the Bellegerin lines. Around them, horses jostled, men cursed, officers shouted for order. As daylight filled the bottom of the valley at last, the two armies faced each other, Bellegerins on the south, Amikans to the north. The Amikan forces had crossed the Line River and come here because there was no better place for their battle than this. The bouldered heights that walled the lowland gave the commanders on both sides the advantage of being able to watch and direct the whole conflict from above. It also allowed their theurgists the opportunity to strike at will without hazarding themselves. But the armies also relied on the horsemen in their lines below the ramparts. Both forces needed open ground for cavalry. Foot soldiers had no hope of reaching the high positions like redoubts from which the Magisters fought.

  In this confrontation, as in the entire war, Belleger’s whole attention was fixed on its enemy. It had no other concerns. Any student of the heavens could have told his king that the world was wide: far wider than the lands claimed by Belleger and Amika. But Belleger knew nothing of this. Bordered on the west by seas and an unnavigable coastline too sheer and reefed to be sailed, to the south by mountains with jagged cliffs and peaks that clawed the sky, and in the east by a trackless desert, the Bellegerin realm had nowhere to look except toward Amika in the north.

  If Amika knew more, no one in Belleger cared. The fight for survival stripped away other considerations.

  Here Prince Bifalt was clad like any other soldier. None of the riflemen wanted to call attention to their unique purpose, their unprecedented tactics. In addition, King Abbator did not wish his eldest son singled out for death. The Prince was indistinguishable from his comrades in his boiled-leather jerkin and leggings; in his helm and breastplate, both marked with the emblem of his homeland, the sign of the beleaguered eagle. In every obvious respect, his weapons—his bow and arrows, his saber and dagger—were identical to those carried by all the Bellegerins.

  In full daylight, horns sounded from the Amikan lines. At once, the enemy horsemen began to move. As they came down the slope below their heights, they swept from a canter into a full gallop.

  Almost immediately, King Abbator’s lead commanders responded. When they gave their own signal, Prince Bifalt and the entire Bellegerin army surged toward the plain.

  Mounted on their armored chargers, they rode with the wild hearts and severe discipline of well-trained cavalry. The sight of the Amikan forces pounding to meet him made the Prince ache to draw his rifle. But he had his orders: he did not touch his gun.

  As he and his comrades drew within bowshot, the opposing Magisters attacked. Without warning, a line of fire spread across the Bellegerin front. It seemed to come from nowhere, feed on nothing, yet it burned with the ferocity of a furnace. In an instant, the screams of men and horses appalled the air. Heat made torches of hides and heads. Flesh bubbled and ran like wax. Bones flamed like tinder. In that instant, scores of Bellegerins died.

  At once, Belleger’s sorcerers countered. Wielding their gifts, they answered fire with fire—and with other powers. Elsewhere a deep cracking sound shook an Amikan company, knocking the horses to the ground. Under them, the earth opened: it swallowed men and mounts whole, broke the legs of beasts trying to avoid it, pitched riders headlong to their deaths. When the surface of rocks and dirt closed again, it claimed more victims.

  From both sides, sudden winds with the force of hurricanes struck the riders. Blasts like battering rams punched horses and horsemen to the ground. And after the winds came waves of pestilence that sickened both beasts and men, covered them with oozing boils. The pain of those infections was so intense that some men clawed off their faces and even tore their eyes to escape the agony.

  It should have been a cause for wonder that Belleger and Amika had not eradicated each other from the world generations ago. But sorcery had limitations. Its range was limited, as was the stamina of the sorcerers. The Magisters could not attack each other directly: the distance between their positions was too great. And they could not sustain their attacks. Their exertions drained them. Each wave of theurgy was horrific, but it was also brief.

  In addition, the sorcerers were handicapped by their own cavalry. As soon as the charging armies met, the Magisters could not unleash their powers without killing their own men as well as their foes. The result was that sorcery could not rout either army. Despite the carnage on all sides, Prince Bifalt and his surviving comrades still had to fight for their lives.

  As in past battles, the Amikan strategy was simple: kill Bellegerins, as many as possible. But now Belleger’s defenders had a more definite objective. Supported by vicious spates of fire, by quakes that tore sections of the earth apart, by winds and pestilence, and warded by companies of their comrades, Prince Bifalt and the other riflemen strove to pierce the Amikan lines so they could approach the enemy ramparts.

  The Prince loosed arrows until the battle engulfed him and his bow became a hindrance. Then he discarded it, snatched out his saber, and began hacking at his enemies.

  Dodging through the chaos of screams, war cries, curses, his charger trampled charred corpses, skirted crippling pits and cracks in the plain, skidded in blood-drenched mud. The riders assigned to his squad’s protection absorbed most of the Amikan force near him. Still, he had to cut and thrust savagely to keep himself alive. When his blade was batted aside, he turned his blocked slash into a swing against a different
foe, trusting Gret and Jeck to guard him.

  Abruptly, an Amikan dropped Gret and rushed close, mouth wide in a bloody howl. Prince Bifalt stopped him by driving his saber between the man’s jaws. The Amikan died in a red spew; but the bones of his skull trapped the blade. As he fell, he wrenched the saber from Prince Bifalt’s hand.

  Snatching out his dagger, the Prince went on fighting as well as he could. Some soldier behind him would try to retrieve Gret’s gun.

  Stride by stride, Prince Bifalt’s mount began to ascend the slope at the foot of the Amikan redoubt.

  Then, suddenly, he won free of the battle. Several other riflemen had been forced back. Others were too heavily engaged to accompany him. But no one stood between him and the last rise, the stretch of ground where the high pile of the enemy’s rampart reared upward. There or nowhere, he would be able to find his targets and take his shots. And Jeck still guarded his back.

  Off to his left, he saw three members of his squad emerge from the fighting. At a glance, he knew they would fail. Amikans had rallied behind them—and the Amikans had not discarded their bows. Already arrows hissed in the air. One rifleman died with a shaft in his back. His comrades were thrown when their mounts stumbled under them.

  But they rolled to their feet, recovered quickly; turned their rifles on their immediate foes. That was necessity, not tactics. They disobeyed one order to obey another: keep their guns out of enemy hands. For the first time in the long war, shots cracked through the clamor. For the first time, Amikans were flung from their horses by bullets and rapid fire. In shock, nearby riders halted like men hitting a wall.