Jommy, Tad, Zane and Servan didn’t need to be told twice. What had less than half an hour before been a rear echelon area, a staging point for troops heading into battle and a resting place for troops pulled out of the line, was now suddenly the front. An hour ago, all five young men had been nursing aching bodies, eating decent meals for the first time in two days, and anticipating some well-earned rest. After eating, they had found a shady spot under a wagon on which to sleep. They had become accustomed to the needra, the six-legged Tsurani beast of burden, its restless snorting and its alien odours. They were so tired it had only taken minutes for them to fall asleep.
Jim had been the first to be roused by the shouting. They had barely avoided being trampled by Dasati Deathknights, and had escaped their nets only by scurrying up the rocky hillside which led to a ridge that had served as a natural defensive barrier on Alenburga’s left flank. The only problem was that everyone else in the headquarters had gone in the other direction.
For the last two days they had been making a steady retreat. The Black Mount would expand on a fairly regular basis and the Tsurani magicians were attempting to gauge its rate so that they could predict a safe distance for each withdrawal.
The defenders’ tactics had changed. They were no longer attempting to repulse a Dasati invasion, but rather were attempting to fight a screening rearguard withdrawal to give refugees time to reach the safety of the nearest rifts. Pug had established a rift that morning between Kelewan and another world, and the Emperor’s edict had gone out. Magicians had carried the order to every part of the Empire and the population was mobilizing. It would be impossible to get everyone through the rifts in. time, but they were going to save as many as possible.
Once the first major rift had been established, Pug had created a second one to a distant continent, then created a gateway for the Thūn. A third had been created in the Thuril highlands, and after that, other magicians were creating secondary gateways to those locations. Still other Great Ones were busy creating lesser rifts around the Empire, which terminated near the first major Tsurani rift, on the City of the Plains. That location had been selected because the area around the rift was vast and a few dozen lesser rifts could open there giving enough room for the massive influx of refugees to wait without trampling one another.
The problem seemed to be creating enough rifts to reach the new world. Pug was one of the few magicians capable of creating such a rift without help. Once he had established a rift, other rifts at nearby locations would naturally follow it to the new world, and that was beneficial, but it still took two or three magicians four or five times as long to do the work. At the last report there were seven effective rifts to the new world. But Kaspar had remarked within earshot of the young captains that seventy wouldn’t be enough.
So, there was a need to slow down the Dasati, who seemed intent on capturing as many prisoners as possible to be dragged back to the Black Mount and thrown into the pit to feed the monstrosity on their home world. No one wanted to consider how horrific the situation had become. The Tsurani were warriors by tradition and temperament, and always focused on what was ahead, not behind them, but estimations ran as high as twenty to thirty thousand Tsurani having gone into the pit in the last two days. From what they had seen, the young captains thought that number low. The Dasati were anything but stupid: they were rapidly adapting their strategy and tactics to fit the situation and now their raids were massive and unexpected.
It was probably just bad luck that had this newest one had brought them almost on top of the Tsurani headquarters.
Jommy looked around as they could hear the rumbling of the Dasati riders on the other side of the ridge. ‘Where are we?’
Zane said, ‘Tad was the last to see the map.’ He looked at his foster brother and asked, ‘Where are we?’
The slender blond youth held out his hand, palm outward and fingers down. ‘This,’ he said pointing to his middle finger, ‘is the ridge behind us. Over here,’ he said, pointing at the ring finger, ‘is where everyone else went. We need to get from there to there.’
‘With a couple of thousand Dasati Deathknights between us,’ said Servan.
Jim Dasher said, ‘Wait, I have an idea.’
‘What?’ asked Jommy. Since arriving with messages for Lord Erik, Dasher had been seconded to General Alenburga’s staff, joining Jommy, Tad, Zane, and Servan as a captain.
He pointed south-west. ‘The Dasati are going that way.’
‘Yes,’ said Tad.
‘So, let’s go that way,’ he said, pointing north-east. ‘We cut across the valley floor, and we’re on the other side where we can catch up with the General and the others.’
‘Brilliant idea,’ said Jommy, ‘but you’re overlooking one thing.’
‘What?’
‘Everyone else at headquarters is mounted. They have horses. We don’t. We’ll never catch up with them.’