Fire Angels

Chapter 20 Part 1 The Journey South

Later that morning as the army lined up to be addressed by Lady Julia, I felt more hopeful.

On one side of the field stood the remaining men of the Patriarchal army, wearing the white and gold colors of the Patriarchate fluttering from their battered coats and hats. They were only four regiments, but they were crack regiments of the Patriarchal bodyguard and despite their bandages, they looked it. With them stood the priest-mages, their black robes laced with white and gold. There were three and half phalanxes of priest-mages now that Patriarch's troops had been added to our phalanxes. Again many of the newcomers were wounded, but they stood straight and proud nonetheless. The Patriarch had publicly pardoned the renegade priest-mages for breaking away from his army.

Beside the Holy States' men stood the great mass of Morians. Every Southerner in the Ducal army must have come with us and a number of central Morians as well. There were several regiments of horse solders and the rest were infantry. There were also a little over four phalanxes of fighting mages, but the drawback with them was that they had never fought together before. All the Morians wore the red ribbons of the Madraga's pinned to their coats and helmets and their excitement and exuberance was palpable. They showed a distinct tendency to cheer and wave their swords at everything Lady Julia said or did. At the front of this group were the new Southern recruits, badly armoured and patchily armed and still wearing the garb of farm workers, craftsmen, merchants or laborers. They had been placed in the front in this assembly however, because in most cases this was the first chance they had had to see Lady Julia. If anything they were more wildly beribboned and enthusiastic than the other Morians. They were to march at the end of the column and to be kept very much in reserve, for Lady Julia had no taste for sending poorly armed and trained men into battle unless it became urgent. Except for a hard core of experienced guerilla fighters like Shad, few of the Morian troops had seen any combat.

Finally to the left of the army, the appropriate side for magic and mystery, stood the Klementari.

Was it possible that there were more Klementari than we had started with? They wore their drab brown and green fighting garb and were armed with swords and bows, but although they were lightly armed they looked formidable. Their pale high cheek-boned faces were calm and their dark eyes unreadable. The light morning breeze blew their wild pale hair even wilder. It was as if the very spirits of the forest and mountains had risen up in cold outrage to smite the necromancer and his demons.

Lady Julia sat high upon a white horse. She spoke brilliantly again, so brilliantly that, even though it was almost the same speech as I had heard the night before, I found myself cheering with the rest of the army.

On a horse beside Julia Madraga sat the teenaged Anton Rouget, son of the Elector of the North. His father was too badly injured to travel and had sought asylum in a nearby monastery. Not before pledging his vote and the vote of his son after him to Lady Julia's rulership, however. Drawn up along side them was a litter. The curtains had been opened and from inside the Patriarch, who had been badly wounded in both legs but who was determined to push south with us, nodded and smiled at the cheering troops.

On Lady Julia's other side sat Symon the Raven his black cloak spread out over the back of a great silver-colored stallion. The new Southern troops' eyes were upon him as much as they were upon Lady Julia and I saw they felt a mixture of fear and elation at seeing him there.

It was an army imbued with the spirit of determination that set out on the march to Beenac. The weather was hot and sultry and remained so for the next five days as we marched through the beautiful rolling countryside towards Beenac. At the end of that time it was a far grimmer and even more determined army that arrived at those walls five days later.