Jonwood looked up at Mallet and grinned. “See – I told you he wouldn’t forget his friends.”
42.
When the urgent call came from Markris, summoning him and Thaniel to Mallet’s aid, Aram felt an odd sort of relief. Rather than having to choose a spot upon the field to inject himself into the battle, perhaps to the neglect and detriment of another place that needed him more, he was free now to get into the conflict, to strike the foe where he might do so to the salvation of his men.
As Thaniel charged eastward down the ridge behind the lines of straining, struggling men, he passed Nikolus and Jared, going the other way. Nikolus saluted him as they passed, but it was Jared who spoke.
“Varen states that we are needed to aid Donnick,” the horse explained, to which Aram returned a terse reply.
“Go. I will come when I have relieved Mallet.”
Ahead of him the hilltop where, according to Markris, Mallet fought against such terrible odds came into view. And it was as the horse had said.
Mallet and his band of Wallensians, joined by the company of Senecan archers, were hard-pressed. While the line still held as it ran out along the ridge toward the brow of the hillock, upon the small rounded summit itself the line of men had nearly collapsed, retreating until it held just the very brow of the hill. Mallet’s band was now nearly surrounded on all sides by gray men and their lasher commanders.
Aram immediately saw where he could relieve the pressure upon this wing of his army. He held the Sword aloft, washing it in wan sunlight. “Go out to the east end of the hill,” he told Thaniel. “Where Mallet and Jonwood stand together.”
As Thaniel drove down upon the compact formation of men, Aram shouted at the top of his voice.
“Make way!”
Mallet jerked his head around, discerned Aram’s intention, and leapt to the side, dragging Jonwood with him as a group of four lashers made to close the gap that opened up.
Thaniel charged through the gap and into the enemy.
“Turn left,” Aram instructed the horse. Leaning out to the right side, Aram lowered the Sword and released the flame it had gathered.
Lightning flashed from the blade, smashing into the lashers, killing one instantly, knocking a second down and causing the others to twist away, stumbling into their own troops. As Thaniel crashed through the gray men, wounding many and killing two or three outright with the spikes of his armor, Aram leaned further and swept the blade through the body of the wounded lasher, severing the great torso. Then, as Thaniel surged onward, he kept the blade out, letting it slide through the bodies of multiple enemies, piling them in a devastated heap.
Then Thaniel was through and beyond, down the slope and among the wolves that harried the foe from the rear. Aram lifted the Sword again, letting it gather what power it could from the shrouded sun.
“Turn!” He yelled aloud, and the horse pivoted, digging his great hooves into the rocky hillside. The surviving lashers had spun to face him, and they had committed the grave error of forming up together. Thaniel charged and Aram lowered the blade once more.
This time, the fire slew them both.
The soldiers of the enemy here on the eastern slope of Mallet’s hill were packed eight or ten deep, and many of them now turned and lifted their pikes, thrusting them at Thaniel.
Concerned that one of them might get in a lucky stroke and wound the horse, Aram told him, “Turn away, Thaniel – let’s get clear and we’ll go at them from below.”
As Thaniel pivoted to go back down the hill, Aram swept the Sword through the forest of pikes that were leveled and thrust at them, ruining many. Then they were clear once again and back out among the circling wolves.
“Turn and hold a moment,” Aram told Thaniel. “I want to see how things stand.”
The horse pivoted again and halted, facing up the slope, breathing heavily from the exertions of the last few minutes. Aram stood tall in the stirrups, holding the Sword above his head, and examined the fighting just up the slope from where they stood. Already he could see that the intervention of his Sword and the horse had made a difference.
Thaniel’s passage through the ranks of the enemy, combined with the death wrought by the Sword of Heaven, had disordered the enemy greatly. Mallet, Jonwood, and others had moved into the gap he and Thaniel had created in the line and were pushing the enemy in that area back down the slope, relieving the pressure on other parts of the line.
Still; more needed to be done to ensure the survival of Mallet and his troops.
Aram looked left, eastward, toward the depths of the small, rocky canyon. The gray men there were in the midst of a slow retreat in the face of increased pressure, having been apparently abandoned by their overlords. The enemy commanders in that quadrant, the very end of the enemy line, numbered three.
Oddly, these three lashers seemed to have lost all interest in taking the hill. Grouped in close formation, they were busily moving away, not down toward the floor of the valley, but eastward, along the jagged slope and away from the battle, using their halberds to defend against a company of four wolves that worried them as they went. The three beasts were obviously fleeing the fight.
Closer at hand, the wolves had attacked with renewed vigor, and Mallet’s line of men atop the hill were now expanding their area of control. Aram looked westward, along the ridge leading toward the main bulk of the army.
A short distance away, there was a company of several lashers, five or six, sprinting toward him.
It was at that moment, as he was deciding on his next move, that it occurred to him that the Guardians had not shown themselves when he and Thaniel had smashed through the enemy host. They had not abandoned him – he could feel their presence. Yet they had done nothing.
Was it because of the proximity of Manon, he wondered? Or was it perhaps that the Sword had shown astonishing power, despite the timidity of the noonday sun?
The Sword, held high above his head, shrieked with power and fairly glowed with fire in the hazy sunlight. Aram glanced up at it curiously. Rather than blunting its power, the smoke-shrouded sun seemed to imbue it with greater strength than ever. Perhaps the particles of smoke and ash in the firmament enhanced in some way the effect of that great golden orb upon the blade.
Or maybe the Sword itself sensed that it was near its ultimate fated doom, just across the valley in the dark tower.
Whatever the reason, the blade seemed exalted.
When he dropped his gaze from the gleaming Sword to the battle raging atop the hill, Aram quickly took stock of how things stood. Mallet and his men were pressing forward, retaking bits of the ground they had lost. Still, though their lasher overlords were either slain or were deserting them, there were too many of the gray men in active lines of battle near the top of the hill. Mallet needed a bit more relief to turn the tide.
Aram glanced at the approaching group of lashers.
And then he knew what he would do.
“Go to the west, Thaniel,” he told the horse. “Straight into those lashers.”
The horse hesitated. “What of Mallet?”
In reply, Aram pivoted in the saddle, leveled the screaming blade, and released its fire into the clot of gray men gathered upon the eastern slopes of the hill. Terrible flame leapt forth and exploded with a massive burst of energy among the enemy soldiers, killing dozens outright, wounding many others, terrifying the rest.
Many broke and fled toward the valley floor.
Aram lifted the Sword once more. “Now,” he said to Thaniel. “Let us go to the west and slay as many lashers as possible and bring relief to our lines – from here all the way to Berezan’s Elamites.”
Thaniel spun and drove away toward the west, but as he went, the great horse faltered, even stumbled, due to the ruggedness of the sloping ground.
“Careful, my friend,” Aram cautioned him. “We cannot afford to have you go down.”
“I will not go down, Aram,” Thaniel responded gruffly.
Aram
looked forward, along the lines of the enemy. Though their numbers had been diminished greatly by the Senecan missiles, there were still hundreds of the beasts scattered along the rear ranks of the enemy. At the moment though, curiously enough, most seemed content to act as commanders, driving the gray men forward into the human army.
Many others, however, in places where the free men had managed to pierce their lines, were actively involved in the fight. It mattered not, Aram intended to kill as many as possible, but because of the surprising potency of the Sword, slaying those fighting in close proximity to his own men presented a danger to his own troops. So he decided to slay those behind the lines and where feasible, weaken the enemy line in general.
When the flame from the blade was released into the gray men below Mallet’s position, the group of six lashers running toward the hill hesitated and then turned and charged down across the angle of the slope straight toward Aram and Thaniel. Apparently, they thought their numbers sufficient to overwhelm the horse and rider, or perhaps they believed that Aram had exhausted the Sword’s magic upon the gray men.
In either case, they were wrong.
“Turn to the right, downhill,” Aram instructed Thaniel. “Go around them.”
As the horse responded, angling down the slope and then turning westward again, the lashers altered course and charged down in an attempt to cut them off.
Aram lowered the blade and swept it across their formation, releasing its flame as he did so. Because he angled it downward in order to avoid some of its power from rebounding up the slope and endangering his own troops, the lightning stroke struck the lashers in the meaty parts of their thighs, severing their legs from their bodies, on the instant rendering each of them immobile. Brackish blood poured from the stumps of severed limbs as the monsters went down, screaming with pain, their lives draining away.
Aram raised the blade again and he and Thaniel went on.
As Thaniel pounded through a shallow ravine and to the top of the next ridge, Aram looked up the slope toward the battle. At that moment, they were passing below Elam, right where the brown and green of Cumberland filled the ranks. A gap had opened up in the enemy lines and Kitchell’s troops were flanking the enemy toward both the east and the west.
Gratified by the sight, convinced that no aid was needed from him here, Aram looked forward for more targets of opportunity. Fifty yards away, just coming up and over the slope from the west, another group of lashers were herding a large reserve company of gray men toward the gap in front of Cumberland.
Another blast of terrible fire from the Sword of Heaven slew many of them and scattered the rest back down the slope toward the valley floor. The lashers that survived Aram’s blast ran after them, though it was unclear whether they meant to corral the fleeing gray soldiers and bring them back into the conflict or were themselves in full retreat.
In any event, for the moment at least, they were removed from being a threat.
“Keep going to the west, Thaniel,” Aram said.
“Should I get closer to the lines?” The horse asked him.
“No,” Aram told him firmly. “I do not want the power of the Sword to endanger our own men, nor do I wish to bring you too close to the enemy. There are very many, and I do not intend to give them an opportunity to find a gap in your armor, my friend.”
“I can stand a pin-prick or two, Aram,” Thaniel argued with obvious irritation. “Other than killing two or three of the enemy below Mallet’s hill, I have done nothing.”
“You are doing what is needed,” Aram told him bluntly. “This Sword is our best weapon today – it will fight for both of us.”
On they went. Though the bodies of lashers littered the slope all along here, where Seneca had slaughtered them as they came up toward the battlefront, many more had survived and were engaged along the front, most as commanders behind the ranks of gray men.
Aram slew dozens more of the beasts as Thaniel charged toward the west, through ravines and up over the crests of ridges. As they went westward, toward the road at the center, the ground grew perceptibly gentler. Aram let Thaniel move upslope, closer to the actual conflict, so that he might more carefully target the flame from the blade, slaying both lashers and gray men while keeping the fire from recoiling upward and scorching his own men.
They passed Thom, and Aram was gratified to see that the tall general and his men had opened a wide gap in the enemy front and were working to exploit it. Further, there were the bodies of at least two lashers visible among the enemy fallen.
They began to pass underneath where Lamont was heavily engaged. The road was not much further ahead. Below Lamont’s right flank, there was a rather deep ravine and Aram instructed Thaniel to angle to the right to minimize the effects of the slope as they climbed the higher ground opposite. For a few moments, because of the orientation of Thaniel’s course, Aram was looking out across the valley almost directly at the distant tower.
He let his gaze run up the sleek lines of the structure, looking for the door or window that he knew was there, but his eye could not resolve it.
He held the Sword high as he glared at the gleaming tower.
See us, vile enemy – we are here.
I am here.
Then Thaniel turned and angled the other way as he climbed toward the crest on the far side of the ravine and gained the road. Aram turned his gaze away from Manon’s tower and looked up the pavement toward the battle front. And his heart jumped.
Ice crystalized in his veins.
The road was filled with lashers. At least three separate companies of the huge beasts were deployed upon the black surface of the road. The group farthest from him and Thaniel, beyond those clustered nearer, and that was closest to the lines of battle, had formed up and was rapidly moving away, charging straight into the fray on Lamont’s left flank.
43.
Timmon checked the holding chains of the cart that held the cannon for perhaps the hundredth time, first the left and then the right kicking them to see that the anchors held firm, even as he knew that any pressure from his booted foot was far too feeble to gauge their soundness. Then he looked forward once again. The gun was loaded and ready to fire, but for the moment, unneeded. Muray’s men still held the road against a straining mass of gray men, who were ceaselessly hounded forward by their beastly overlords.
He kicked the right-hand chain once more and went to the back of the cart where Bonhie waited with the horses that would move the cart if it became necessary. The rest of his crew was there as well, standing bunched up together, nervously watching the action raging just yards away to their front.
For the moment, there was nothing for any of them to do.
Bonhie whinnied and Timmon held up a hand to stroke the horse on the side of the head.
“Easy, old girl,” he said. “We’ll be alright.”
Bonhie was a mare, the only one of her gender present at the battle. Bonhie’s mate had died during a particularly rough winter on the high plains four years ago. During that same difficult time, her only son, newly foaled the previous spring, had died as well. After her time of grieving passed, the mare had sought for and received permission to forgo mating with another in order to join with the young stallions that had gone to war with men.
Timmon’s first mount, Duwan, had come up lame the very next year, having received a wound in the Battle of Bloody Stream that rendered the horse unable to bear a man into battle again. Bonhie had offered her services as his mount and the engineer from Aniza was instantly taken with the golden-haired mare. The two became close, the very best of friends. Timmon had joked to her more than once that, “If you were a human woman, old girl, I’d go ahead and marry you.”
Florm had approved of the pairing, for Timmon was seldom involved directly in battle and usually made little use of a mount, while Bonhie exhibited a great affection for the clever man.
Now, however, he and Bonhie were both here, right at the front, tasked with holding the most precio
us piece of ground on the battlefield – the smooth, black-paved road that descended into the valley of Morkendril, and which, if lost, pierced the army at its very heart.
“Don’t worry, old girl,” Timmon repeated. “If those bastards come up the road, this cannon will make quick, short work of ‘em. You just stay off to the side – okay?”
“I will not shun danger while you seek it,” the horse stated.
“I am not seeking it, my friend – I am trying to prevent it,” Timmon explained. And then, “We’ll all be fine,” he said again.
With his hand still on her head, Timmon turned to look once more down the road, just in time to see the great horned heads of dozens of lashers appear above the lines of straining men. He froze. The horned heads grew larger by the moment; the awful truth hit him like a hammer. The beasts were charging the line.
They were coming straight up the pavement.
A few yards in front of Timmon, Muray stood in the center of the road. The fierce, stout commander remained stock-still for a moment, watching the onrushing monsters, and then he turned and waved his sword wildly at Timmon.
“Gun!” He shouted simply.
Timmon spun and gestured to his crew, in particular singling out a young soldier named Ryan. “Prepare the fuse! Get up there – make ready to fire!”
Ryan leapt up and into the cart where he checked that the fuse was properly inserted into the rear chamber of the gun, and then he put flint to steel and lit a sliver of cedar kindling and waited breathlessly for Timmon’s next command. Others lifted the ramrod and sacks of nixite in preparation for reloading the gun once it was fired. All stared down the road with widened eyes.
A gap appeared in the center of Lamont’s lines.
Through that gap could be seen a forest of horned heads.
Timmon glanced up at Ryan. “Keep that flame away from that wick until we’re ready,” he roared, and then he spun to look back down the road.
Kelven's Riddle Book Five Page 28
