“Allystaire,” the older, bearded man called, “Another foraging party. Larger than the first—much larger. Four, five score.”
Allystaire swallowed fast. “Berzerkers?”
Keegan nodded quickly.
“Norbert,” Allystaire said, “Round up the Order, get Arontis and Landen. Rest and respite are done.”
The young knight nodded quickly and was back in the saddle in a moment.
“What is their line of march?”
“North of here,” Keegan, “and moving east along the Pine, following its Needles to any likely looking farmsteads.”
“If we could get down into one of those little valleys and start a merry fire,” Torvul suggested, “we could draw them down t’meet us.”
“No,” Allystaire said, “I will trap them, yes. But the same way we trapped the first, with their own lust for blood. To your horses, go. We move in a quarter of a turn. We are going to ride hard to our north and east.” He quickly slipped the map he had already tucked away back out, waving Keegan to him. “Show me,” he murmured, “and then tell your men to get Gideon up and tie him into the saddle. Then stick next to him, keep his horse moving.”
“I’m awake,” the boy suddenly said, sitting up. “The Islandmen aren’t just plundering or foraging. They’re cutting down trees.”
“Symod’s after ladders, then, or towers.” Torvul spat to the muddy grass near his boots. “He’ll not have the know-how t’make decent engines, but if he’s got over a thousand Islandmen and three hundred berzekers, he can take the place by main force with ladders.”
“That it took him this long to realize that is to our benefit,” Allystaire said. “Yet it does not take much to make ladders, and they only have to hold for one use. All the more reason to make sure none of them report back.”
Keegan held the map out to Allystaire, moving his fingers over it. “This hasn’t got all the Pine’s Needles marked upon it, hasn’t got the one they were nearest, I don’t think. But here,” he said, stabbing his finger against the parchment at a spot along the unusually straight course of the river in question; small channels spread away from it along most of its length, often supporting such villages as were still inhabited in Varsyhnne.
Keegan’s finger pointed to a spot that would be a straight enough ride of a turn or two for the main body of the force. Allystaire nodded and packed the map away again, then offered Gideon a hand. The boy came wearily to his feet.
“Idgen Marte says that Gilrayan hasn’t moved from Wind’s Jaw yet. He makes excuses, says he’s waiting for a force of sufficient size.”
Allystaire sighed. “What of Harlach?”
“Still a day out, and running short of mounts.”
The paladin nodded. “I will need you to coordinate between me and the men who will be with the other force.”
“Other force?”
“I mean to explain only the once,” Allystaire replied. “Yet you are going to have to be tied to the saddle again, I expect. I am sorry.”
Gideon shook his head. “Do not apologize. This task could be done by no one else.”
Allystaire gave Gideon a quick pat on the shoulder, then mounted Ardent. Alone amongst the horses that had made the hard ride of many days north into Varshyne, the huge grey seemed not to have lost any of the shine in his eyes or the strength of his muscles.
Landen, Arontis, Loaisa, and Lurezia Damarind rode up to Allystaire’s banner, around which the men of the Order were gathering, leading weary horses.
“Landen, I want you to take your lances, and Loaisa, your riders, and everyone in our midst with a bow, and make a hard line north and west. Arontis, take one half of the Thornriders, and the Telmawr knights forward with me, to the north and east. The balance of our forces will remain reserve should things go sour. We are intercepting another foraging party. This one is also after lumber, and I need not explain what that means for Pinesward. They are moving along the Pine itself, stopping in the Needles. Landen and Loaisa, your job will be to stop their flight if we break them. I expect we will.”
“That’s confident,” Baroness Damarind said with an expression Allystaire couldn’t place as a grimace or a smile.
“They are untutored men with an abundance of bravery and no firm hand on their bloodlust. We will be attacking them from higher ground, mounted, with lances. They will break. If you encounter any berzekers, do not try to take them one to one. Spit them on lances, fill them with arrows, hurt them as much as you can before you must come to grips with them. Ride careful for a turn, then stop and walk your horses. Do not mount them again until we come to the Pine, or at need. Go.”
Allystaire ignored the face or two that held questions in their expressions, and nudged Ardent into motion. The destrier’s hooves found purchase in the muddy grass, churning along at a steady rate. He heard the sounds of other horses scrambling away, turned back to see Norbert, Teague, Gaston, Miklas, and Mattar peel away from his line of men, leaving him with Armel, Harrys, Tibult, and Johonn. He turned to the last, who looked out of place on his horse, like his feet might touch the ground, his longaxe leaned casually against one shoulder.
“Might be more work for you with the other party,” Allystaire pointed out.
Johonn shook his head, his jaw jutting out. “Prefer t’stay with you. I’ll keep out from under any hooves.”
Allystaire nodded. “Stay close to Gideon, then, with the wild men, would you?”
“I’ll do it if y’ask,” Johonn said warily, “but I’d rather be in the fight.”
“This is only our second taste of the Islandmen, Johonn. We will all have our fill before it is done.”
* * *
Spring in Varshyne was browner than Allystaire would’ve liked, but it was still beautiful, in its way. There were patches of green, but in general the entire place seemed to be made of mud; thankfully it wasn’t a thick or clinging mud that would work against the horses.
Not yet it isn’t, Allystaire told himself. Another week or two and spring rains find us, then we’ll see.
He stood beside Ardent at the very lip of a hill, prominently displayed against a blue-white sky. Behind him, Harrys held the Mother’s Banner, the golden sunburst and blue silk listless in a light breeze that was still enough to stir the smaller pennants on his lance, and on Harrys’s, Armel’s, and Tibult’s. Below them, in a dip in the earth that was a bit scant to be called a valley, the Pine flowed, a long, straight, brown length. Above it, more hills, more brown.
Crawling along it, well beneath them and highlighted against the brown earth beyond them, was the foraging party. Keegan and his men, with occasional adjustments from Gideon, had led Allystaire’s force straight to them.
He hated needing to assume that Landen and Loaisa’s party were similarly in place. Gideon was dozens of yards away, with the reserve force, tightly guarded by Johonn and four of Keegan’s men.
Only a few yards behind him was the first of the two companies of the Thornriders, the Innadan and Telmawr knights. The small distance would make all the difference to anyone looking up at them from the valley’s floor.
All they would see, standing at the very top of the hill above the rise, was the banner, and four knights.
“You’re takin’ an awful risk,” Torvul quietly called from one or two yards behind. In truth Allystaire wasn’t sure the dwarf would’ve been visible even standing next to him, given the angle, but the dwarf had insisted. For the feel of the thing, he’d said. For symmetry. “They could have bows or crossbows, throwin’ axes or spears.”
“By the time they are close enough for axes, it will not matter much. As for bows, the bulk of these men have not had the time to learn them well enough to be dangerous. And I would bet my last link that the Dragon Scales eschew bows altogether.”
“Have you got any links left? A wager or two might pass the time.”
“I think I own nothing but my armor and my hammer,” Allystaire replied. “I found the last bit of gemmary I brought with me, rings that belong to the Lord of Coldbourne Hall, a carnelian cameo, and a tiny chip of lapis. Left it at the Inn with a note.”
“Cold,” Torvul swore. “She didn’t make you swear to poverty.”
“I tire of this talk. And I tire of waiting,” Allystaire said. “Do something to draw their attention, would you?”
“Fine.” The dwarf pulled a bolt free from the quarrel on his hip and carefully applied something to it from a bottle, one of the many stuck in pouches affixed to his jerkin. He slotted the bolt, lifted his crossbow high, and fired.
The dwarf had fired casually, aiming at nothing in particular, Allystaire guessed. But when it landed atop a large flat rock, the sound reverberated across the water and sent a huge puff of smoke into the air.
As one, the armed men below them turned towards the sound, and then to Allystaire’s bellow carried to them on the breeze, and by the potion Torvul had handed him just before.
“BRAECHSWORN COWARDS. COME AND FACE THE MOTHER’S JUSTICE. COME, AND BE READY TO MEET YOUR GOD.”
A yell went up—one of the howling yells from a berzerker at the core of it—and the Braechsworn turned to run across yards and yards of empty mud, brandishing weapons that shone with newness in the sunlight.
“Let them spend their strength,” Allystaire cautioned. “Do not even mount yet. We do not fear them.”
Tibult was stroking his horse’s neck and feeding it a handful of grain. Allystaire had not seen a man bond so deeply, so quickly, with an animal he meant to bring into danger. Every night of the ride, Tibult’s horse was fed, brushed, rubbed, watered, and had its hooves checked before its rider had so much as a morsel. Every morning was the same. Harrys was checking his girth strap, with the calm assurance of a master carpenter looking over his tools before setting to work. Armel showed the only sign of nerves, rolling his head around his shoulders, shifting his feet.
“MOUNT,” Allystaire yelled, and though it lacked the force of his previous yell, it had enough in it to roll over the men behind them. The sound of over a hundred men in armor mounting their horses was deadly and yet oddly quiet.
The weaker elements of the charging Islandmen began to falter on their run. The strongest, those with the greatest lust for blood and glory, were pulling away from the rest. Allystaire searched the mass of men for the berzerkers, looking for the telltale gauntlets, the bare ink-scrawled chests. He saw one, running at a pace that seemed leisurely. As he searched for the other he saw a priest of Braech wearing an ill-fitting breastplate over his robes, carrying a spiked mace and screaming admonitions at the men as they burst away from him. He was left with no choice but to follow, turning red in the face as he ran after the Islandmen.
When Allystaire judged them past the point where they could easily turn and run, he lifted his lance from its boot, waving the pennant aloft, back and forth, once.
The main body of horsemen started to advance behind him. He waited but a moment more before lifting the lance again and waving it twice.
Then he gave Ardent the spur and the huge muscles beneath him, already bunched and waiting, exploded into movement.
* * *
Theophraste knew, he knew, as soon as he’d heard the sound and then the paladin’s yell, what was going to happen.
Even as he was shouting orders at them, yelling for them to form a line and hold it, they broke and rolled forward like a wave towards the shore.
And like all waves, the young priest of Braech told himself, they’re going to smash themselves on the rocks.
He had no choice but to follow after. As he was running, unlimbering his mace, and looking at the crest of the hill he found himself almost wondering, caught up in the euphoria of the charge, if it really was just four men standing there. And even if one was a paladin, Theophraste would take the odds of four against a hundred.
His hopes were shattered when he saw the two signals given by the paladin’s lance. He stopped in his tracks, screaming for the men to stop. A handful, a dozen at most, heard him and stopped. The rest ran fruitlessly on, brandishing their newly-won steel, stolen Delondeur armor flashing in the sun.
Then an answering wave of red-surcoated lancers came pouring over the hill in a wedge formation, their lances a rippling wall of deadly steel moving at the head of thousands of pounds worth of horse and man.
The very tip of their spearhead was the paladin, and the other knights flying the Sunburst.
And they cut through the front-running Islandmen like rays of sunlight through a fog.
* * *
There was something in Allystaire that thrilled to be on Ardent’s back, running downhill, his lance leveled. All of his energy, all of the years he had spent training, hardening himself, perfected this moment, this one act.
It had always been this way, from his first tourney joust, to the opening charge of every battle. A thrill, a deepset knowledge that he was doing the thing to which he was best suited, by temperament, inclination, and training.
And yet this time, this charge, while he knew he was doing the Mother’s work, there was something in it that sickened him. Islandmen with new weapons and almost no training were crushed into the mud under Ardent’s steel-shod hooves. The first man he aimed his lance at watched dumbly as it ripped him open and Allystaire had the briefest impression of him clawing feebly at the length of wood as it bore him to the ground.
But then his hammer was in his hand and there was no time to think; there was only the steady rise and fall of his arm, the thud of the hammer into upraised shields, knocking aside blows with his own shield. Always letting Ardent move, guiding him, giving him the spur if the destrier felt for a moment like he was slowing.
He heard and felt the shock from behind when the Thornriders swept down moments after him, the cries of pain and fear as lances met flesh, as horses plowed into and over the men standing in their way.
It was apparent, quickly, that a rout was in the making. Islandmen were tripping in the mud, trying to get their feet back under them to reverse course. A few tossed aside weapons they’d been brandishing only moments before.
“DRIVE THEM WEST,” Allystaire bellowed, calling on long experience of yelling orders over the din of death and battle. “DO NOT LET THEM MAKE THE RIVER.”
Ardent broke free into a clear patch of ground. Allystaire let his mount slow as he whirled his head side to side, looking for the Dragon Scales. He saw one leave his feet, knocking a Thornrider clear of his saddle, his clawed gauntlets tearing at the man’s armor, shredding surcoat and digging into the steel beneath.
Allystaire started to turn Ardent, when suddenly he was knocked from the saddle. The impact felt like a stone thrown from a catapult catching him flush. As he hit the ground he saw Ardent circling, turning his great neck to follow the flight of his rider.
His shield skidded away from him, but he kept a grip on his hammer; whatever or whoever had thrown him free had ridden him to the ground, so Allystaire used the momentum of the fall, extending his legs to fling the man over his head.
It was the second berzerker, and despite the way Allystaire had thrown him, he landed on his feet.
The paladin was barely back on his feet in time, raising his hammer in a two-handed grip to ward off the swiping claws.
Torvul’s steel was up to the task, though it sent a shock reverberating up Allystaire’s arms.
The berzerker swiped a few more times, and though the blows were strong, they were artless. Their speed kept Allystaire from counterattacking. Finally, instead of swinging at him, the berzerker tried to hook his claws around the haft of the hammer and pull it from the paladin’s grasp.
Allystaire didn’t let go, but he did let the other man pull him forward. He stepped into it, snapping the metal haft of the hammer into the berzerker’s gri
macing face.
It was like swinging a club into a stone wall. But even a stone wall would be chipped by a man with enough force, enough patience, enough knowledge of where to lay the blow. The berzerker’s cheek opened and bled freely over his snarling lips and chin.
The berzeker tightened his own grip on the hammer and very nearly pulled Allystaire off his feet. There’d be no more swinging the haft into his face, Allystaire thought. It was all he could do to keep hold of the weapon, and he knew that letting it go, giving a Dragon Scale a way to concentrate all the strength of his arms in one blow, would mean his death.
Allystaire tried twisting, feinting to one side then throwing all his weight to the other. He was convinced that if he was facing a normal opponent it would’ve thrown the man down, but he wasn’t; he was facing a mad, holy warrior with a strength given by the Sea Dragon Himself, and with his own Gift of Strength not responding, he was losing.
He felt the hammer slipping.
Then there was a rush of movement from one side of him, and the berzerker suddenly collapsed, all the strength gone out of him. Allystaire stumbled a few steps backwards, the hammer suddenly free in his hands.
Johonn stood over the fallen berzerker, who was shouting in the Islandman tongue. Allystaire knew enough of it to know it was a prayer, a hymn to his own death in battle.
Half of the Dragon Scale’s left leg lay dismembered in the mud; blood pumped in huge torrents from the stump.
Johonn lifted his axe over the fallen form and said, “Take your own advice next time, Arm. Don’t take them one to one.”
The knight’s double-bitted longaxe flashed in the sun as he raised it, and the berzerker’s faint screams of prayer trailed to nothing as it descended through his neck.
“Armel, Tibult, and Harrys all pinned the other one with lances. Taking his time dying, though,” Johonn said, as he pulled his axe free. “Are ya hurt?”
“You were supposed to be guarding Gideon.”
“He came back to himself and ordered me to attend you,” Johonn rumbled. “Told me where you’d be.”
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