Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 24
robe. He sat hunched forward, eyes fixed on Jordan.
"We had the breeze to our advantage. My men set fire to
some sort of long tubes filled with... sulphur, I think. They
made a horrible reddish-yellow smoke." Jordan didn’t want to
talk about it any more, but once he had started it was hard to
stop. And Allegri was staring at him as if he could force the
story out of him by willpower alone. "The smoke went over
the Seneschals. They started to fall down, they choked on it.
The lines broke. We had time to regroup, we got ready to
charge."
"And then?"
Jordan swallowed. "And then the Winds came."
From the hillsides all around the battle scene, a cloud
rose as the birds, the bugs, the burrowing animals and the
snakes, all rose and marched into the valley. The grass itself
began to twist and come to life, and the earth trembled as great
silvery boulders wrenched themselves out and sprouted legs.
The men and horses around Jordan milled in panic. He could
see they were screaming, but their voices were drowned by a
tumbling, roaring, and shrieking mass of life descending on the
battle lines.
"It was the sulphur," he said quietly. "They smelled the
sulphur and became angry at us. It was okay as long as we
were cutting each other up. Beating each other to death. But
the smoke..." Jordan relived a feeling of terrible helplessnness,
as he watched both armies dissolve under a tumult of fur,
feather and scale. Only a few stragglers and quick horsemen
escaped. The steam cannon exploded with ringing bangs, and
mist and sulphur clouds hung low for many minutes until,
drifting away, they revealed an encampment of the dead. The
animals slunk away into the hills, shaking the bloody fur of
their backs as they passed the stunned witnesses.