“But Grand Master…” began Hadraine.
Caldarus backhanded him across the face, and blood sprayed from Hadraine’s jaw. “I am the Grand Master of the Justiciar Order and you will obey me! Go!”
Hadraine bowed and stalked away.
Caldarus glared at him, hand wrapped tight about the hilt of his black dagger. Mazael Cravenlock would pay for his stupid little tricks. Yes, he had inflicted heavier losses than Caldarus had expected, but not nearly enough to destroy the runedead horde.
The greater strength of Caldarus’s army would win out, and then he would cleanse the Grim Marches of evil.
How he looked forward to it!
###
Molly slashed the forehead of a runedead, her dagger’s blade destroying its crimson sigil, blurred into the shadows, reappeared behind another runedead, and stabbed the creature in the back. The blue flame sheathing her sword pulsed, and the undead sagged to the ground.
She stepped back into the shadows, reappearing a dozen yards away.
No longer did she need to pick out individual melees. The runedead attacked the entire shield wall, the sheer mass of their attack forcing the curved line wall flat. Endless flights of blue-blazing arrows hissed overhead, raining into the runedead, and Molly could not remember how many of the creatures she had destroyed.
And still more came.
Molly struck and struck, her arms aching, her lungs burning.
###
“To the river!” said Riothamus, Toric’s griffin weaving and dodging over the battlefield. “Quickly!”
All around him raged a battle larger than any Riothamus had ever seen, the lords of the Grim Marches and the Tervingi nation fighting against the Justiciar Order and the runedead. The griffins wheeled in their mad dance over the battle, exchanging spells with the burning wizards below. It seemed as if the entire world had filled with fire and ice and blood.
“If we get too close, the burning wizards will blast us from the sky!” said Toric, urging his griffin to turn.
“I will deal with the burning wizards,” said Riothamus. “Go!”
Toric gave a resigned shrug. “All men must die, no?”
He tugged at the griffin’s reins, and the beast shrieked a battle cry of its own and headed for the Justiciar reserves behind the runedead.
And for the surviving runedead wizards.
Riothamus felt the surge of power as several of the burning wizards targeted them.
He raised his staff, its sigils pulsing with golden fire. A globe of golden light appeared, encasing Riothamus, Toric, and the griffin. An instant later several blasts of flame leapt from the burning wizards and hammered against the globe. The ward flickered and shuddered, rippling like a soap bubble, but held against the assault.
Then it was Riothamus’s turn.
He dropped the ward, drawing upon the full might of the staff. The Guardian of the Tervingi was a protector and a counselor, not a warrior, and could not use his power to harm or kill living men.
But the burning wizards had already died.
Riothamus gestured, and blue-white lightning fell out of the cloudless sky to hammer against the runedead wizards’ wards. Another bolt, and another, and his magic tore through the defensive spells to destroy three of the creatures, sending their burning bones tumbling in all directions.
Then Toric’s griffin soared over their heads, and the burning wizards turned their attention to other targets.
“The river,” said Riothamus, “get closer to the river.”
“The river?” said Toric. “Why?”
“Get close enough to touch it,” said Riothamus.
Toric shrugged again, and urged the griffin into a steep dive.
The silver ribbon of the Northwater lay beneath them. The river was not as wide as the Iron River in the old homeland of the Tervingi, nor as deep as the River of Lords that flowed north of Barellion, but it was still wide enough and deep enough to make a crossing difficult. The griffin drew closer, and Riothamus summoned power, the full strength of his own magic and the entire might of the Guardian’s staff. The staff trembled in his hand, white mist swirling around its length.
The griffin dipped low over the river, so low that its talons brushed the water. Riothamus leaned to the side, staff in his right hand, left hand gripping the saddle.
He thrust the tip of the Guardian’s staff into the Northwater and released his spell.
Power erupted from the staff, and a sheet of white mist covered the river as far as Riothamus could see. When it cleared, he saw that the river had gone motionless, glittering in the sunlight.
The Northwater had turned to solid ice.
“You froze the river?” said Toric as his griffin spiraled back into the sky.
“Aye,” said Riothamus, slumping. Freezing that much water had once had been exhausting.
“Why?” said Toric.
“To make the river easier to cross,” said Riothamus, gathering his strength for another spell.
“Ah,” said Toric. “Then the hrould intends to give the foe an avenue for escape.” He looked at the battle. “Though I fear we need an avenue of escape, not the foe.”
“No,” said Riothamus, lifting the staff once more. On the western side of the river stood a large inn, a good-sized village standing to the north. The village had numerous barns and pastures large enough to conceal waiting attackers. “No, the hrould intends that none of our foes shall leave the field today.”
He cast the spell. Three bolts of lightning erupted from the sky and slammed into the ground near the inn, the thunder audible even over the chaos of the battle.
Loud enough to serve as a signal.
###
“He did what?” said Caldarus as the last echoes of the thunder faded away.
“The wizard froze the Northwater, Grand Master,” said Hadraine, rubbing his bloody lip.
“To what possible gain?” said Caldarus. “The fool Mazael thinks to offer us an avenue of retreat? Absurd. The reserves are ready to join the fight against the enemy cavalry?”
“Yes, Grand Master.” Hadraine looked east. “Our knights are holding against their charge for now, but reinforcements will tip the fight in our favor.”
“Then send them in,” said Caldarus. “Finish it.”
He turned, smiling, to watch the defeat of the Grim Marches and the destruction of Mazael Cravenlock.
###
Mazael bellowed and struck down another Justiciar.
The battle raged around him, horsethains and knights struggling against the Justiciars. Some of the Justiciars had come at him, drawn by his golden armor and the blazing sword in his fist, and Mazael had cut his way through them. Yet the Justiciars showed no signs of wavering. They were veterans, disciplined and skilled, and would not leave the battlefield until their Grand Master ordered it.
A horsethain charged a Justiciar knight, brandishing a mace. The Justiciar caught the blow on his shield, twisted in his saddle, and stabbed with a black dagger that blazed with pale green fire. The glowing blade sank into the horsethain’s side, and the Tervingi warrior screamed. One moment he was a vigorous man of thirty. The next, he looked a hundred years old. The heartbeat after that, dust and bones fell from his saddle, his panicked horse fleeing into the chaos.
Mazael put spurs to Gauntlet’s side, and the big horse slammed into the Justiciar’s steed. The Justiciar snarled and slashed with his dagger, and Mazael beat aside the attack with Lion’s blade. A slash, and he took off the knight’s dagger hand at the wrist.
He looked around for another foe to fight and saw none.
The Justiciar knights had pulled back, and for a wild moment Mazael thought they had been driven off. But they had merely fallen back to regroup for another charge. He glimpsed footmen marching behind them, and realized that Caldarus had thrown his reserves into the fray. That was not good – the Justiciar infantry was as tough and disciplined as the Justiciar knights themselves, and together they could drive back Mazael’s ho
rsemen.
And then the Justiciars could circle around the runedead and strike the overextended shield wall.
“Reform!” shouted Mazael, rejoining Sir Aulus and Earnachar. “Sound for reform!”
“My lord!” said Lord Astor, his surcoat and armored splattered with blood. “I fear we are overextended. Better to…”
In the distance, on the western bank of the Northwater, lightning flashed three times.
###
“We must pull back!” shouted Aidan Tormaud, his shield a mass of bright scars, his armor dented and scratched. “If the Justiciar knights and footmen work in concert, we will be overmatched.”
“I agree, Lord Gerald,” said old Agravain Rainier, his face tired and strained beneath his white mustache. “If we fall back to the shield wall, at least we can keep the knights from circling behind the footmen.”
“I also concur,” said Adalar Greatheart. “If the Justiciars break the shield wall from behind, the battle is over.”
Gerald shook his head, his arms throbbing, his head aching from a blow that had clipped his helmet. “The runedead are going to break the shield wall anyway. We need to position ourselves to respond.”
For he could see no way to victory, no way to break the runedead horde. The shield wall, the wizards, and the cavalry had inflicted grievous losses upon the runedead. Yet Caldarus and the Justiciars had plenty more to spare. Perhaps it would be better to fall back to the castles of the Grim Marches, and force Caldarus to spread his forces and commit to multiple sieges.
Yet abandoning the field now would mean the slaughter of both the footmen and the Elderborn.
“Very well,” said Gerald at last. “Fall back behind the shield wall. We will try to screen the flanks of the footmen and to hold…to hold for as long as we can. I will not abandon men who have fought so hard for so…”
Lightning flashed and thunder boomed across the river.
“What the devil was that?” said Aidan.
“I don’t know,” said Gerald. “The fight between the wizards, no doubt.” He shook his head. “We have our own concerns. Prepare…”
The blast of war horns rang over the battle, dozens of them, clear even through the din of fighting.
But coming from the western bank of the river.
###
Mazael stared west.
“I urge you to withdraw behind the shield wall,” said Lord Astor. “The shield wall is going to break, and if we cannot contain the runedead, they will overrun the southern Grim Marches within a week.”
“No,” said Mazael, staring at the river.
“Earnachar son of Balnachar does not show his back to the foe!” said Earnachar. “But it might be better to heed Lord Astor’s counsel.”
“No,” said Mazael. “Reform for another charge.”
“But…” said Astor.
The sound of war horns rang out, carrying over the battle’s cacophony.
Earnachar scowled. “Those horns…they come from the western side of the river! Have the tomb-wights of the Justiciars summoned reinforcements?”
“They have not,” said Mazael. “Those are our men, Earnachar.” He pointed with Lion. “Look!”
Plumes of dust appeared on the western bank of the river.
And in their midst, Mazael saw hulking brown shapes.
###
“The mammoths,” said Toric. “By Tervingar, the war mammoths! That is why the hrould sent them away!”
Riothamus grinned. “You see why he wanted to keep it a surprise.”
Below, one hundred and fifty-three war mammoths thundered towards the frozen river. Each of the beasts stood at least twenty feet tall, and some of the larger ones reached thirty. Their brown fur hung in shaggy coats, and their long trunks curled as the mammoths trumpeted war cries. Atop each mammoth sat a wooden platform bearing a score of hunters from the Elderborn tribes, their bows ready. The mammoths’ tusks curled towards the ground, and had been set with razor-sharp spikes. Every mammoth also had a chain pulled taut between its tusks, the links studded with gleaming blades.
And every one of the blades crackled with blue fire.
Riothamus’s spell had reached far enough to touch the steel of their blades.
The mammoths strode across the Northwater, the frozen river bearing their weight, and lumbered towards the Justiciar host.
###
“Now!” said Mazael. “Sir Aulus, sound the charge! If we don’t break the Justiciars now, we never will! Charge!”
He saw the ripple of surprise go through the Justiciar knights and footmen. Mazael had made sure that they had never seen a Tervingi war mammoth before, and Caldarus had such overwhelming force that he had not bothered to check the village near the inn.
The village whose capacious barns could serve as a hiding place for the mammoths.
The war mammoths lumbered onto the eastern bank. For all their bulk, they moved quickly, and Mazael saw the panic go through the Justiciar ranks as they realized what was about to happen.
That they were about to face giant beasts they had no idea how to fight.
Sir Aulus blew the charge on his war horn, and the knights and horsethains surged forward.
###
“What the devil are those things?” demanded Caldarus.
Hadraine had no answer for him.
Caldarus had seen an elephant once, an ugly creature brought from the distant lands of the south. But these hulking, furred beasts were to that elephant as a mountain lion was to a kitten. The wooden platforms on their backs bristled with archers, and the barbed chains taut between their great tusks glittered with razor-edged blades, blades that crackled with the same damnable blue fire as the rest of Mazael’s army.
“Tervingi war mammoths,” said Hadraine at last. “The scouts…the scouts heard rumors…”
“Absurd,” said Caldarus. “These tales of mythical barbarian beasts! I…”
“As mythical as the griffins?” said Hadraine.
Caldarus glared at him. “Recall the reserve! Have them turn to face these mammoths, now!”
“But they’ll be overwhelmed, Grand Master!” said Hadraine. “They…”
“Damn you!” snarled Caldarus. “Turn them around!”
Hadraine started to give the commands, but it was too late. The reserves had already split in two and marched to reinforce the wings of knights. The mammoths thundered forward, and Caldarus realized the ponderous beasts could move much faster than their size suggested.
They crashed into the reserve, and the bodies of the screaming men did not slow them at all.
###
Molly whirled, ripping both her blades through a runedead. Blood dripped into her eyes from a cut across her eyebrows, and she felt the slow burn as her Demonsouled power healed the wound. Her breath rasped through her throat, and her arms felt as if they had been sheathed in sheets of lead. Yet her Demonsouled rage drove her onward, kept her cutting a swath of destruction through the runedead.
But she did not know how much longer she could keep this up.
Then a ripple went through the undead, and for a moment the onslaught around Molly broke up.
She blinked in surprise and saw the mammoth.
The beast stampeded through the runedead. The undead were impervious to steel, but not, it seemed, to getting crushed beneath ten tons of muscle, fat, and fur. Additionally, the bladed chains between its tusks shone with blue flame, and the mammoth mowed down more runedead with every step.
For an absurd moment it reminded Molly of a cook shredding cheese.
Then she saw another mammoth lumbering through the runedead host, and another, and a smile came over her tired face.
“Father, father,” she murmured. “You are a clever scoundrel, aren’t you?”
A faint roaring reached her ears, and she realized that the men in the shield wall were cheering, pushing against the runedead with renewed vigor.
Molly threw herself into the fighting.
###
&
nbsp; Gerald’s knights crashed into the southern wing of Justiciar horsemen, striking right and left with their weapons. The Justiciar knights and infantry staggered beneath the impact, the assault pushing them towards the mammoths. And Gerald saw the fear in their eyes, saw the terror as they looked at the unfamiliar creatures.
Arrows hissed from the mammoths’ backs as the Elderborn archers released. Their arrowheads were obsidian, and the Justiciars wore steel armor, but the Elderborn had the uncanny senses of their race. The arrows thudded home in the gaps between armor plates, Justiciar knight after Justiciar knight falling.
The Justiciars broke.
The knights turned their mounts and fled, their horses running in panicked fear from the mammoths’ musky scent. The infantry sprinted for the river, throwing down their weapons for greater speed.
A cheer rose up from Gerald’s men.
“Lord Gerald, we must pursue!” said Aidan. “This isn’t over until we find Caldarus!”
“Ride on!” shouted Gerald, raising his sword.
###
“Cowards!” roared Caldarus. “Cowards! Stand and fight! Stand and fight!”
The armsmen and the knights alike ignored him both, desperately trying to get away from the rampaging mammoths. Dozens of the beasts trampled their way through the runedead host, scattering it and easing the pressure on the shield wall.
Caldarus’s army was falling apart.
How had this happened? The runedead were unstoppable, and the Tervingi nothing more than savages. He must have been betrayed.
“Hadraine!” snarled Caldarus. “Find me a horse!” This wasn’t over. He would command the runedead to withdraw across the Northwater, since the Tervingi wizard had so conveniently frozen it. He could reform his army, gather the loyal men, and use his black dagger to feast upon the lives of the traitors.
Soul of Swords (Book 7) Page 32
