'Then why don't they?' Rolsok whispered.
The wilds were escorting the men in slings. Was that why the rebels used slings--because they did not annoy the wilds? How did the rebels get the wilds to follow them, anyway?
Now his eyes could resolve the great cloud of birds into dots, and he could see how those bearing slings had sunk to the lower edge, but they were still higher than he would have expected. And there were yet more dust specks behind. In the name of God, where had they all come from?
He straightened. It was time--if it was not too late.
'Attack!'
Every man jumped from his paralysis. Mirrors were ripped from bindings and turned sunward; to the waiting army, the top of Rakarr must have flickered suddenly in dancing pinpoints of light. And the birds of the Royal Guard began their glide.
Those in the lower part of the column had still to gain altitude, so they continued to circle. To Ninomar, the rest seemed to dwindle in size as they turned head-on.
The higher birds had farther to come, but their dive was steeper, so they would be coming faster. He had not thought of that: Two-thirds of his force was going to pass directly over his head at very much the same moment, and there would be impossible crowding in that tiny patch of sky. Damn, but there had been no time to plan all this properly!
He looked back into the Big Jump. The first ranks were close enough to be obviously eagles, but the dust cloud behind was still growing thicker--they were still coming, a bee swarm of eagles. Two hundred thousand? Four? He could not even guess--the odds were hopeless. Where had they all come from?
The others around him were thinking the same. 'If every man gets a bird with every arrow...' a voice said.
There were still not enough arrows in the army.
'Stop that!' Ninomar shouted.
If those unridden birds were going to fight and were not merely camouflage, then Marshal Lord Ninomar was going to lose this battle.
It would be no battle--it would be a massacre.
The sun was darkened. He looked up, and the royal army was there, birds filling the sky, a forest of birds, thousands, some so low that he wanted to duck, packed in the air, hurtling darkward--men yelling and cursing as their neighbors crowded in on them. Here and there he saw some very near misses.
His heart swelled with pride at the sight of his gallant host, this royal army, his army: the skymen, the lords of the air!
Brave lads! Many of you will die today, he thought, and I am sending you into a very unfair fight. But you will do your duty, and I have done my best for you. Now you must do yours for His Majesty.
A solid cloud of eagles poured overhead, all diving at great speed into the wind.
Then something very odd happened.
Every bird raised its feet and ducked its head in a move he had never seen
Simultaneously.
Fourteen thousand men screamed in unison.
And the sky was full of blood.
Chapter 19
'The last of the skymen.'
IF the palace at Ramo was the most luxurious dwelling place for men in the world, then the royal breeding aeries nearby were the eagles' equivalent. Aurolron had spared no expense or trouble to build and equip and staff them. In spite of his cynicism and his lack of interest, the duke of Foan had been impressed. Even had he truly been expected to inspect, comment, and improve, he could have added nothing to what had already been done and was being done. His banishment had been for other reasons entirely, and he knew that he could do nothing but submit. Rage would be useless.
So the duke threw the breeder out of his luxurious quarters and moved in. He ordered a large supply of good wine, hired three or four limber girls, and proceeded to spend most of his time in bed, drunk or wenching or brooding.
On the first day he received a brief note from the marchioness: The king was very pleased with Elosa, but she was fatigued after her long journey and the doctors had suggested a few days' bed rest. The duke burned the note and called for the next girl.
Days dragged. He had no friends at court, had not shared in the gossip, had been a pariah, his very face evidence of treason. Only loneliness had been his companion since he had left Ninar Foan, and only his surroundings had changed now. Were it not for his rank he would be in the dungeons, and at least his present quarters were better than that.
He endured. Mostly he mulled over his own mistakes, and there seemed to have been many.
Firstly, of course, he should have married Mayala--a passion like that comes but once in a life, and never in most. But dukes and princesses required royal permission to marry. Aurolron had refused it and summoned her. Foan could have resisted, but that would have placed him between rebels on one side and an outraged liege on the other--it would have been rebellion itself, with the state already threatened. So he had submitted. Had that been loyalty or cowardice?
He had made possible the truce between the king and Karaman. He had always believed that truce to have been a triumph. Now he suspected that it had been a second error.
He should never have married Fannimola. She was a link which had brought him lands, but little lust and less love. At that point in his dirge he usually called for a girl.
Elosa? In his darker spells, he counted four when he got to Elosa. A diamond shines most brightly on black velvet; even a hard man needs a soft place, a gentleness, somewhere in his life. He had lost it in Mayala. He had not found it in Fannimola or on the bleak and rocky uplands of his fief. He had made Elosa the tenderness at the core of his being, pandered to every whim--and somehow he had taken all the softness away from her, removing the black velvet and leaving only another diamond, hard and sharp and cold. Elosa, my fledgling!
Another bottle.
And Hiando Keep? More than an error--a madness. But she had sworn that she was pregnant, and the child had been born at the right time. When the proclamation of the heir had reached Ninar Foan, he had done his calculations and then worried no more, remembering only those few hours they had spent together as being the zenith of his mortal passage. Oh, Mayala!
But then Fannimola had gone visiting at court. She had always been a grim-faced bitch, but that was nothing compared to what she was like when she had returned. Put the heir apparent next to the scullery brat Rorin, she had said, and only the age difference would let you tell them apart. Explain that to the king and to the people, Your Grace.
Traffic between Ninar Foan and Ramo had become very rare thereafter.
How many errors was that? Five? Usually he was too drunk or drained to count by then.
Vindax's visit? That had been a disastrous error, but not his.
He had withheld the king's letter from Vindax before the hunt and the accident. In hindsight that had been an error but also an honest attempt to do a kindness. It probably would not have made any difference. He could ignore that one.
