Into Narsindal

by Roger Taylor

  ‘Later,’ he said, turning the Helyadin’s gaze back to the battle with a nod of his head.

  The Orthlundyn phalanx had turned and was driving along the Morlider line, but was coming under attack from the Morlider archers. The cavalry had withdrawn and was re-grouping, presumably with a view to attacking the Morlider archers before the circling left wing outflanked the phalanx. Once again, Hawklan felt the battle come to a balancing point. The Morlider were fearsome and brave fighters and, despite their dreadful losses, they were beginning to slow down the phalanx, even holding it in places, as some of wilder spirits among them actually seized the ends of the long pikes and hacked at them with swords and axes in an attempt to reach their foes.

  Hawklan had no doubt that the phalanx would hold and that the mounted archers could do great harm to the approaching Morlider wing: but would it be enough? He sensed perhaps not; their position was becoming increasingly defensive. And, despite the considerable panic in certain places, the Morlider’s mood seemed to have shifted from surprise and anger into indiscriminate battle fury. Thus fired and uncaring about their fate, their sheer weight of numbers could give them the day.

  Would give them the day, if action was not taken.

  He led the Helyadin back to Andawyr and the others. The Cadwanwr were still motionless, both now with arms extended, but it seemed to Hawklan that the unseen wind which buffeted them was taking a toll.

  It came to him that if their conflict was not ended soon then Andawyr and Atelon must surely crumble, standing alone against this terrible Uhriel. Out on his solitary vessel, the sinister figure of Creost stood, equally motionless.

  Hawklan frowned as his gaze took in two approaching ships. Reinforcements, he thought.

  He looked again at the disposition of the Orthlundyn forces. He could have done no better, he saw. Loman’s command had been sound and shrewd but . . .

  Reinforcements! What other forces still lay on those distant islands?

  A horse-pulled sled galloped past, swaying ominously. It was one of several that the Orthlundyn had made for carrying supplies about the battlefield, and it was stacked high with bundles of arrows. Riding the horse was a young boy.

  Drawn from his thoughts by the sled’s seemingly reckless progress, Hawklan pointed.

  ‘Who . . .?’ he began.

  ‘He’s from the village,’ said one of the Helyadin. ‘Fendryc’s village. There’s a few knocking about. They just turned up and started helping with the horses.’

  Hawklan swore. The Riddin village with its population of the too old and the too young left to tend the surrounding farms! The Riddinvolk had thrown their every able resource into meeting this enemy. Now even the frail were stepping forward.

  How could he do less? Now, more clearly than ever he saw that he too must commit his last resource to try to tilt this battle if the Morlider were bringing in reinforcements.

  He set the calculation aside, and his resolve, buried by the sudden burden of Ynar Aesgin’s fears, reasserted itself.

  Turning to the Helyadin he said quietly, ‘String your bows, friends. We’re going to stop that Morlider left wing.’

  Despite himself, Isloman expressed the immediate response of the group. ‘It’s not possible,’ he said, his voice full of alarm. ‘There’s not remotely enough of us.’

  Hawklan looked at him for a long moment and then smiled. ‘Since when is the possible so easily measured, carver?’ he asked. Then he patted Isloman’s arm affectionately. ‘Tirke, Athyr, keep our quivers filled. We’ve a battle to win.’

  Turning Serian, he began walking towards the ordered ranks of advancing Morlider. Except for those trusted with the protection of the two Cadwanwr, the others rode after him.

  As they moved forward, Hawklan glanced upwards. The sky had been silent since the lights and thunder that had panicked the cavalry, but as he looked at the grey, mottled clouds he felt a strange sense of foreboding.

  What extremity had the Drienwr been in to have reached out, unknowing, to seize him thus? He remembered how Andawyr had appeared before him as he sat drowsing in the library at Anderras Darion and in that dusty sunlit storeroom in Vakloss. But here he had been about to enter battle.

  He set the questions aside. If even Andawyr did not truly understand how such things had happened, how could anyone else? But still the foreboding persisted and the lingering regret that perhaps yet again he had turned away the Drienvolk when they had sought his aid. That he could have done no other in such circumstances offered him little consolation.

  ‘Here,’ he said, reining Serian to a halt. ‘Dismount. Line abreast. Pick your targets and take your time. If they break and charge us, maintain your aimed fire into the leading ranks until my command, then remount and move down line.’

  The Helyadin obeyed Hawklan’s order in silence, and their flimsy line stretched itself out in front of the dark mass of the Morlider and their waving pikes with the easy leisure of companions about to enjoy an afternoon’s friendly archery practice.

  Their assault did not have the immediate morale-breaking impact of the massed volleys that had shattered the Morlider’s flank guards, but the Helyadin were expert shots and almost every arrow struck its target. Very soon a length of the approaching wing was in complete disarray.

  Eventually, as Hawklan had envisaged, a section of the assailed infantry began to charge forward in desperate fury in an attempt to end this peculiarly dreadful attack.

  He watched them come. ‘Keep firing,’ he said unhurriedly. ‘Take your time. Three more shots at least. Aim for those still holding their stations.’

  Nearer.

  ‘One more.’

  Nearer.

  ‘Mount up.’

  And the Helyadin were gone, leaving the charging Morlider to hurl axes, swords, and abuse after them with equal futility.

  Twice more the group reformed and attacked the relentlessly advancing line, doing great harm.

  As they pulled away for the third time, Hawklan looked at the frayed and straggling line that had marked their assault.

  It was not enough. The whole wing had slowed a little as a result of the attack, but much of it was still intact. The Helyadin’s attack was having an effect quite disproportionate to their numbers, but they were still very few.

  For the first time that day, Hawklan’s mind turned to Agreth. A single Muster squadron could smash the unprotected flanks and rear of the Morlider line.

  Had the Riddinwr reached an outpost that might carry his news swiftly south? Had he been able to draw away the Muster from whatever treachery had led them there? Despite himself, Hawklan found his eyes looking to the misty horizon in the hope of seeing the quivering movement that would be riders approaching.

  But all was still.

  ‘Riders.’ The urgent voice was Dacu’s. Hawklan took in a sharp expectant breath. But Dacu was not pointing to the horizon, he was pointing to another group of riders emerging from behind the Morlider line. Fewer than before, but galloping again towards the Cadwanwr and their small guard.

  Still attacking the heart, Agrasson, Hawklan thought.

  Quickly he dispatched half the Helyadin to intercept them. ‘Don’t close with them,’ he shouted. ‘Shoot the horses, then the men. I want no survivors. Then get back here as quickly . . .’

  His orders froze in his throat as the foreboding he had felt before suddenly returned, though far worse, doubling and redoubling, as if a great power were descending from above to crush the whole loathsome field and all on it.

  Then the sky ignited.

  A dazzling incandescence flooded the two armies and the snow-covered arena with a light so bright that it seemed that no matter could stay its flow sufficiently to cast a shadow.

  Yet even as hands rose to cover tormented eyes, there came a noise that swept such concerns into nothingness. It filled the sky and enfolded the battling peoples in an embrace so powerful that not one there could hear his own screams. The swaying lines of pikes wavered and fell like corn
before hail as Morlider and Orthlundyn alike tumbled to the ground vainly trying to avoid this overpowering and terrifying onslaught.

  Hawklan fell forward and clasped his arms around Serian’s neck. Faint but sure, an inner light held firm amid the tumult within him and showed him that now above all times, the outcome of this battle lay in his hands.

  He tightened his grip around Serian’s neck. His voice would not be heard, but the healer in him would reach the horse.

  ‘Hold, Serian,’ it said. ‘Listen to the sires within you who know me and who know the truth. This is the doom of another world not ours. Who rises first from this, carries the day. ’

  The great horse reared and screamed unheard as its spirit fought against the fears that would have its body flee from this horror, but Hawklan entered into it and for a timeless moment the two sustained each other, moving beyond the light and the noise.

  Then, as the dreadful brilliance lessened and became a shifting, ghastly, bloodstained iridescence, and the sound dwindled into a cascade of tumbling thunderclaps, Hawklan leapt down from Serian.

  ‘Quiet your own, before they recover their wits enough to flee,’ he shouted, then he ran among the stunned Helyadin, dragging them to their feet, staring into shocked eyes, slapping faces, thrusting unsteady forms on to equally unsteady horses, and roaring his will at all of them.

  Two others were doing the same, he noted. One was Isloman; the great carver, though patently terrified, was unceremoniously dumping the Helyadin into their saddles. The second was Dacu. Fleetingly the memory returned to Hawklan of the great silence that had awakened him in the mountains and how it had so moved the Goraidin. ‘A gift to guide me forever,’ he had said. The memory eased his own pain in some way.

  ‘Through the archers and rally the phalanx!’ he shouted to the two men, signalling at the same time.

  Both acknowledged his cry and mounted their own horses.

  Hawklan spun Serian round in front of the recovering group and drew the black sword. He was an ominous figure, cutting as starkly into the minds of his shaken troops as he did through the baleful, shifting, red light still pouring from the blazing sky.

  ‘To me, Helyadin, to me!’ he shouted, his voice still lost in the dying din from above, but his meaning unmistakable. The Helyadin started forward, first at the trot then at the gallop, as their leader drew them forward and as the rhythm of their movement began to displace the terrible possession of the noise.

  As they rose, Hawklan’s own vision cleared. The Morlider who had been riding to attack Andawyr were scattered, most of them unhorsed by their panicking mounts, but so too were the Orthlundyn cavalry. The great blocks of infantry, both Orthlundyn and Morlider, were motionless.

  He could not bring himself to look up, as if fearing to see some awful livid wound torn into the very fabric of the sky. Whatever had come to pass in the Drienvolk’s conflict, this battle here had to be won, and Creost defeated.

  The thought took his gaze briefly to Andawyr and Atelon and thence to the Uhriel. Though their bodyguards were gone, both the Cadwanwr were seemingly unmoved by the happenings around them, as was the distant figure of Creost, still jagged and awful in Hawklan’s sight.

  At the edge of his vision, he saw the two ships bearing reinforcements for the Morlider. In the eerie stillness of the fallen armies and the whirling confusion of the demented horses, the smooth purposeful movement of the two vessels seemed strangely grotesque.

  Soon the enemy’s reinforcements would be ashore.

  Then the Helyadin were crashing through and over the Morlider archers, swords rising and falling, arcing red in the reflected cloud light and the blood of their hapless enemy. The swathe they cut, however, caused no great panic as most were too occupied with the terrors still shaking the sky above them.

  Nearing the Orthlundyn infantry, Hawklan saw that, like his brother, Loman, though unhorsed, had recovered quickly from the ordeal. The smith was running along the ranks of fallen and crouching figures as desperately as Hawklan had run amongst the Helyadin. Under his exhortations, individuals were rising to their feet and struggling to help their neighbours.

  ‘Spread out. Get these people moving,’ Hawklan thundered, leaping down from Serian at the run and dashing forward to join Loman.

  Then, as the infantry climbed up from its knees, he and the Helyadin were through to the broken front line of the Morlider, a thin strand of frenzied, hacking, skirmishers spreading out before the recovering Orthlundyn like a ripple presaging the arrival of a great wave.

  The rumbling above continued to fade but, as it did, so the Orthlundyn filled the incipient silence with their own thunder as once again they began their relentless advance.

  Hawklan and the Helyadin retreated through the phalanx and remounted.

  ‘We’ll not re-form the cavalry,’ Dacu said anxiously. ‘There’s hardly anyone mounted and the horses are scattered everywhere.’

  Hawklan did not answer immediately, but glanced quickly upwards. Through the residual rumbling, he thought he heard a thin, flesh-crawling screeching high above, but it disappeared under the mounting pandemonium of the battlefield and he dismissed it.

  He turned back to Dacu and his concerns. ‘Most of them have still got their bows,’ he said. ‘Get them guarding this flank, and skirmishing. Then do what you can with the horses; we need them.’

  As the Helyadin dispersed to execute this command, Hawklan turned and rode back towards Andawyr. On the way he passed the sled that the Riddin boy had driven by him so apparently recklessly but minutes ago. It had overturned and the horse was struggling white-eyed and foaming in its harness. Hawklan drew his sword and cut the animal free. Serian backed away as, with much kicking and stumbling, the terrified horse stood up.

  ‘Calm it, Serian,’ Hawklan said.

  ‘Tend your own, Hawklan,’ the horse replied with an inclination of his head towards the far side of the sled.

  Hawklan looked where Serian indicated and saw a small form lying in the snow. He dismounted quickly and ran to the boy, but even as he bent over him, he knew that the child was beyond any aid he could offer. From the impressions in the snow, it seemed that the sled had rolled over him when it overturned.

  A surge of memories swept through him. Memories of the children of Pedhavin, shouting, running, silently watching, as they played their eternally secret games about the winding sunlit streets of the village, and around the courtyards and halls of Anderras Darion. And somewhere was the glow from his own golden childhood in another age.

  He let the vision unfold without restraint until he found his vision blurring, then colder, adult needs made him lay it aside; though gently.

  The freed horse came and stood beside him. It lowered its head and touched the boy.

  ‘Not your fault,’ Hawklan said, stroking it. Then, to the boy, he whispered, ‘I’m sorry,’ very softly. ‘Fear no more.’

  Remounting Serian, he turned again towards the Cadwanwr. As Hawklan approached, Andawyr moved slightly as if he had been struck, and Hawklan felt again the choking warmth rising up inside him that had marked Creost’s entry into the fray. He turned and looked over the battlefield.

  The right wing of the Morlider was being routed as its bewildered and shocked fighters struggled to escape the renewed advance of the Orthlundyn pikes. The left wing, disarrayed to some extent by the Helyadin’s quiet but savage assault, had stopped its advance and was faltering in some confusion. Dacu and the Helyadin were rallying the broken cavalry to protect the Orthlundyn’s vulnerable flank on foot.

  Hawklan felt both the exhilaration of the Orthlundyn and the terror of the fleeing Morlider. If the attack could be sustained, the Morlider would soon break utterly.

  Creost was acting now not to destroy his enemy, but to save his army! From somewhere, the Uhriel had found the resource to beat back the opposition that the two Cadwanwr had offered him. For a chilling moment, it occurred to Hawklan that perhaps this foul agent of Sumeral had only been toying with these irk
some creatures that scuttled irritatingly about its feet.

  But the moment passed. The seizure of Riddin must surely be vital to Sumeral’s strategy and while the fate of the Morlider army as men doubtless meant little to Creost, as a tool for implementing the will of Sumeral, it was well wrought and powerful, the work of many years; it would not lightly be broken and destroyed if it fell within its creator’s remit to prevent it.

  ‘He would have destroyed half his army to destroy us!’ Atelon’s shocked words came back to Hawklan vividly. Had there been any doubt in his mind about that first assault by Creost, there was none now. Better to lose half the army than all of it.

  Hawklan urged Serian forward. He knew nothing of the ways of the Old Power, but he knew that he was the chosen of the sword of Ethriss and that both he and the sword now belonged to the battle against Creost.

  The cloying warmth ebbed and flowed as he galloped through the snow to bring this aid to the struggling Cadwanwr.

  A quick glance showed him that the Helyadin bodyguard had recovered, but all, save two, had lost their horses. He jumped down from Serian and, drawing the black sword, stepped forward to join Andawyr and Atelon.

  Looking out over the battlefield, he saw the figure of the Uhriel, now more disturbing than ever in the aura that surrounded it. Should he place the sword in Andawyr’s hand as he had in Atelon’s? Should he hold it in front of himself as he had when Oklar had stood revealed before him? No instinct guided him, though something drew his gaze down to the sword itself. As he looked at it, he saw the twining strands in the black depths of the hilt shining and flickering triumphantly as they wound their way through countless brilliant stars into some unknown, unimaginable, distance.

  A touch on his arm returned him to the field. It was Jenna, white-faced and shaking, but in control. She was pointing out to sea.

  One of the two ships bringing reinforcements was heading towards the shore. Hawklan could not make out how many were on board but the danger lay not necessarily in the quantity of troops but in their quality. Could these perhaps be an elite like the Goraidin and the Helyadin? Such a group, fast, powerful, determined, could turn this battle even now. But Jenna shook him and redirected his attention to the other ship.