«No.» So Romiss was dead, and all the secrets of the origins of the Feathered Ones were gone with him. But right now this seemed like a small detail to Blade, who excused himself and went up to see Miera.
She was barely conscious, not even enough to recognize him, and after a few minutes, she slipped back into sleep. Blade sat by the bed until Sarylla came and led him away for a drink. She looked almost as bad as her patient by now-gaunt, red-eyed, her glossy black hair faded and hanging in strings.
Now bad news and good news followed each other in swift succession. First they heard that Chenosh had signed an alliance with King Handryg of the West Kingdom. Next they heard that King Fedron was preparing to invade with his main army. Then they heard that Chenosh was returning, bringing some of Handryg's Lords with him, to wait until King Handryg himself arrived with the rest of his army and supply wagons. Finally, they heard on the same day that King Fedron's army had crossed the border and that Miera was showing signs of pneumonia. A few moments later, the girl was fighting for her life, while the King's army was marching straight on the Duchy of Nainan.
After they learned of Fedron's proximity, everyone was too busy preparing Castle Ranit to stand a siege and serve as a base for the army of the Duchies to sympathize with Blade. But he did not miss the sympathy. In his present mood, he was glad to be left alone.
It was going to be a cloudy day, so they wouldn't have to fight in a blazing sun. Blade was glad of that. He didn't find much else to be glad about.
As he was riding down the line of the Duchies' army to his place on the left wing, a thought struck him. Here he was in a scene that came straight out of the pages of a medieval romance. He was a valiant knight going into battle, prepared to do mighty deeds of valor almost under the walls of the castle where his fair lady waited.
Very pretty. Except that he didn't feel valiant; he felt tired and angry. Any deeds he did today would serve mostly to save his own life and those of the men around him from a ruthless enemy. And his fair lady was a shrunken, doll-like figure in a great bed, unconscious, gasping for each breath, and unlikely to live through the day.
He swung his long-handled mace through the air until it hummed. He was in a thoroughly bloodthirsty mood. With half his mind he remembered that this might make him careless. With the other half he hoped it would make him a better fighter.
He reined in on the extreme left flank of the army. There were five thousand Lords, drawn up on horseback and on foot, with two thousand Helpers guarding the horses and baggage. It was the largest army ever raised along the Crimson River and included fighters from every Duchy except Faissa. There were too few trustworthy men from the late Duke Klaman's army still in shape to fight.
They faced an opponent who outnumbered them almost two to one. King Fedron had six thousand Lords on the field, five thousand mounted infantrymen with pikes, and a thousand odds and ends to guard his baggage. Individually, his men weren't as tough as the Lords of the Crimson River, but they had discipline to add to their edge in numbers.
If only King Handryg's army had come! But there was no sign that King Handryg or his army even existed, except for the two hundred Lords he'd sent on ahead. Blade could see their banners near Chenosh's. King Handryg was bringing a ponderous train of wagons loaded with supplies, and they were slowing his march to a crawl. The supplies made sense, if Handryg expected a long war. But if only he had come fast enough to be here today and guarantee victory, he wouldn't have to worry about a long war!
Was Handryg planning to let the two armies tear each other to pieces and then rule the whole Dimension himself? His reputation made this seem unlikely, but not impossible.
Trumpets and drums sounded, and a column of pikemen thrust itself out from the Eastern lines. They marched with an impressively steady tread, chanting as they came. Blade called one of the Helpers over, then scratched Cheeky's back and handed him down to the young man. A battle on this scale was no place for a feather-monkey, even Cheeky, who was as tough as a Feathered One could be. The creature was the one friend Blade had in this Dimension that he could try to keep safe from today's battle.
Cheeky's yeeeep of protest was lost in the din as the pikemen reached the Duchies' lines. They struck close to Duke Padro's banner, and for a moment Blade saw it wavering. Then it steadied, and he saw the towering figures of Padro's bodyguards taking their place around the banner bearer. Even at this distance, they loomed over the men around them.
Blade quickly saw that their strength wasn't going to be sufficient. The pikemen were pressing forward, driving a steel-tipped wedge into Padro's ranks. From among the pikes, swordsmen darted forward, stabbing at faces or chinks in armor with their short thrusting weapons. The swordsmen wore little armor, but against Lords who didn't have room to use their weapons freely they didn't need much.
When Blade saw that the Helper who was carrying Cheeky was out of the way, he signaled to his trumpeter. The trumpet's call gathered up Blade's Guardsmen and urged them forward after him at a trot. They curled around Padro's rear and plunged into the dust cloud rising from the front lines. The sun wasn't out, but there'd been no rain for many days. The ground was powder dry.
Once inside the dust cloud, it was every man for himself. Blade controlled his horse with his knees as he fended off pike thrusts with his shield, and splintered pike shafts and crushed skulls with his mace. A swordsman darted forward, stabbing at the belly of Blade's horse, but it was well trained. It snapped its teeth in the swordsman's face, and he jumped back. Before he could close again, one of Padro's courtiers hacked off his sword arm with a battle-ax, and Blade's mace came down on his head. He fell into the dust, which was now turning into a red mud, where dying men wallowed and screamed under the trampling of men and horses.
After a while, the trumpets and drums sounded again, the swordsmen ran back under the protection of the pikes, and the pikemen themselves withdrew. Duke Padro's banner was still standing, but the Duke himself was being carried away by the only four of his bodyguards who remained on their feet. His olive complexion was now ashen and gray from the loss of blood that followed half a dozen wounds. However he had lived, Blade hoped it would be remembered that Padro of Gualdar died like a warrior and a man.
So the battle went all morning. The Eastern pikemen would advance, the swordsmen would leap into battle, and men would die thick and fast. But the pikemen never broke through the Duchies' lines. Though they always caused many casualties, they withdrew before they suffered nearly as many themselves. They were slowly but surely whittling down the Duchies' strength, and meanwhile the Eastern cavalry was still almost intact. When the two mounted forces did meet, each Lord of the Crimson River was worth two of his opponents. They didn't meet often.
Slowly the battle took the shape of a U, with the sides formed by the Eastern cavalry and the bottom formed by their infantry. The Duchies' army was inside the U, with only the top as a way out. Blade suspected that King Fedron could close that escape route any time he wanted to if he threw in the last of his cavalry. That he was still keeping it out of the fight suggested that he too was wondering where King Handryg might be.
More attacks, more dead, and now men on both sides were falling from thirst, exhaustion, and the inhalation of too much dust. Blade scraped crusted human remains off his mace with his dagger, drank some water, and led his Guardsmen back into the fight. In places he felt as if he were riding through a London fog, except that he'd never heard so many screams of men and horses and so much clashing steel on the streets of London. He'd never been so hot or thirsty in London, either.