AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 4
Battle
In all her life, Param had never been in the presence of more than about fifty people at a time. Even that was unusual, and she had preferred to avoid large dinners or recitals or whatever was being put on in Mother’s honor. And while social events could be full of vicious infighting, it was done with words, looks, and gestures. Nothing had prepared her for war.
She had imagined war, of course—that was what most of history was about, the Sessamoto lords-in-the-tent leading their marauders on devastating raids against whatever village or town looked least protected, and then as kings-in-the-tent forcing the other tribes of the northeast to unite under their rule. Finally the King-in-the-Tent had conquered every nation of the Stashi Plain and subdued every freehold and every wild tribe of the woodlands and every fishing village of the coasts and through all of her study of that history, Param had pictured it all like a combination of the game of queens and the game of clay-casting, with the clay balls alternately knocking over pawns and queens, and dashing to pieces against them.
She had an intellectual knowledge that war was bloody. King Algar One-eye was an obvious example, and General Potonokissu had worn a wooden leg when he walked, though never when he rode. They had been maimed in battle, and if such things could happen to the rulers of armies, Param could only imagine what happened to the ordinary soldiers.
But when all but Umbo joined hands and suddenly dropped into the past, Param was almost overwhelmed by the noise of it. She could hear yelling: fierce cries of warriors, shouted commands from officers, screams of wounded men. And there was a smell of burning meat that almost gagged her, mixed as it was with the other stinks of the battlefield.
Her reflex was to sliver time so she could disappear. She relied on this ability to retreat from anything that frightened her. But she caught herself, realizing that Rigg had not been wrong after all when he worried about her disappearing in the past.
She knelt up and saw that Rigg, who was more used to sudden shifts of time, was already standing up and striding toward three adult women who were watching the battle. Rigg would speak to them; Param had no desire to. The women looked careworn and grief-stricken. They stood near a stockade that surrounded the city and sheltered their party from the view of the soldiers where the battle was being waged.
The stockade looked as if it had been hastily thrown up in a day, braced from behind here and there. She wondered how well it would hold up against a determined enemy. It had been clumsily built; through gaps between the poles it was possible to see the battle.
But Param did not want to see the battle. She had thought that was what she was coming to see, but now that she was here, it was the city that fascinated her, because it was only half built. Only the lower buildings existed, and instead of the uniform black of the towers in Param’s own time, these had been brightly painted, though many were faded and weathered. Yet the colors seemed vivid on this sunny day; it was as if the city had been decorated for a festival.
From the top of one of the towers, a beam of pure heat shimmered the air. Param followed the beam and then strode the five steps to the stockade and peered through. Where the beam l
anded, the grass was erupting in flame, and men were fleeing from it.
At first Param noticed little distinction between the two armies—they were masses of human shapes brandishing weapons. The numbers seemed evenly matched. But soon, from looking at those nearest her, she realized that all the defenders were better armed—swords and bows against clubs and crude spears.
Yet instead of cutting through the attackers, the swords of the defenders seemed rarely to slice flesh. The attackers always dodged away, avoiding the cuts and blows. However, the clubs and spears of the attackers landed all the time; if it had not been for the armor of the defenders, many would have fallen.
Why were the attackers so much better at fighting?
Then Param realized that the attackers all had large, strangely shaped heads; a moment later she saw that their heads were deformed because they had facemasks almost entirely covering their heads. Many of them seemed to have weirdly misplaced eyes, as if the parasite, having covered the face of a man, grew him a new eye out of its own rough flesh. Param found them repulsive and fascinating. The men with facemasks fought savagely and skillfully. They were quick, dancing to dodge incoming arrows from the defenders, darting forward to strike blows which rarely missed, though the defenders’ armor usually turned away the blade.
Another beam came from the tower. It should have been a devastating advantage for the defenders, to have that beam of fire. But instead of striking into one of the masses of the attacking army, it struck an area that was mostly empty of living men of either side. Again flames gouted upward, and men of both sides ran from the area of flame. The battlefield was dotted with patches of flame or cinders or ash, so that neither army could maintain good order.
“Those bastards in the tower ought to be hanged,” muttered Loaf. He was standing at the stockade beside her.
“They don’t seem to aim their rod of fire very well,” she said.
“They’re hitting nobody,” said Loaf. “Useless.”
Olivenko, from the other side of her, said, “What makes the attackers so nimble? I’ve never seen soldiers who dodge so well.”
“The defenders are good soldiers,” said Loaf. “Trained, disciplined. But they hardly land a blow.”
Olivenko agreed. “It takes two of them attacking the same man at once to bring him down.”
“Maybe it’s because they don’t have any armor,” said Loaf. “Keeps them lighter on their feet.”
It’s the facemask, Param wanted to say. The facemasks help them to react more quickly. But she said nothing. Loaf and Olivenko were soldiers; they knew what they were seeing, and she didn’t.
With both of the soldiers watching the battle, it occurred to Param that neither of them was protecting Rigg. What if the women took him for some kind of enemy? What if they were armed? Param could at least take Rigg out of harm’s way, if danger threatened.
The women were speaking a language that Param had never heard before, yet she understood them. She realized that she was not mentally translating their speech into any tongue that she actually knew. Rather she simply understood them at a level below language. The Wall really did give languages to those who passed through it.
The women were angry and frightened, and like Loaf they were condemning the wielder of the firebeam. But the women did not speak of “them” who aimed; rather it was “him.”
“He won’t use it to kill them,” said the tallest of the women. “And he won’t let any of us use it—we’d have no qualms about burning them.”
“They aren’t human anymore,” said the eldest woman—the mother? “Killing them should be like killing grass, but he won’t do it.”
