The plan they had was quite specific and had been worked out in minute detail by Damin, Narvell, Almodavar, Kraig and Lady Lionsclaw over many late nights in the darkness of Tejay’s tent, talking in whispers as they tried to secondguess every possible contingency.
The purpose of Tejay being here this morning was twofold. The first was to rally the inexperienced Sunrise archers, to ensure they got away those critical few arrows before they retreated, and the second was to make certain everybody believed Terin Lionsclaw was alive and well and in command of his Raiders. Rorin was under strict instructions to accompany Lady Lionsclaw through those first vital moments of the engagement and then make certain she retreated with the archers, leaving the infantry battle in the hands of the more experienced officers of Greenharbour and Pentamor Provinces, who made up the bulk of the first wave.
The air was heavy with impending rain, the sky low and overcast. Rorin could actually feel the mood of the men—an odd mixture of excitement and apprehension—even though he had no telepathic ability to speak of.
His palms moist with anticipation, Rorin heard the Fardohnyans long before he saw them. Banging their spears against their tall wooden shields, the enemy advanced in a disciplined formation, their interlocked shields presenting an impenetrable wall that moved with the slow and merciless force of a lava flow. He watched with growing apprehension as the enemy filled the field of battle from the bank of the muddy Norsell to the fast-flowing Saltan River on the other side, assuming (not incorrectly) that the Hythrun would be unable to flank them with the rivers blocking the way. Of course, they didn’t know this wasn’t really the chosen battlefield; that they would be drawn much further down the valley before the day was done, down to the foothills around Lasting Drift, past the only two river crossings in this part of the country, where the massed cavalry of Dregian, Elasapine and Krakandar awaited them.
As the Fardohnyans moved into view, the unrelenting thumping pounded against the ground so hard the earth throbbed in time with the beat. More than a little anxious himself, Rorin leaned forward to calm his skittish gelding and glanced at Lady Lionsclaw. She sat upright and unflinching in the saddle, as if the sight of the seemingly endless Fardohnyans was nothing to be concerned about.
“Ye gods,” Rorin breathed in awe. “Is there no end to them?”
“We are the end of them,” Tejay replied simply. Then she turned to look at him through the narrow eye slits of her jewelled helmet. “Can you actually use that sword you’re wearing?”
Rorin glanced down at the borrowed weapon she’d found for him last night. “Not really.”
“Then use magic to protect yourself, Rorin. I can’t watch over you every minute.”
Rorin thought that was probably a very good idea, even though he was supposedly watching over Tejay. Deflecting a killing blow magically was a far safer bet than trying to be a hero with a blade he’d probably drop out of fatigue ten minutes after picking it up. And it would also allow him to extend that magical protection to cover his companion. But it didn’t seem fair to be the only one using magic.
“Isn’t that cheating? Using magic?”
“If it means you’re still alive at the end of the day, will you care?”
“Well … no, I suppose not.”
“Then do it, lad, and don’t argue with me about it. I’m your Warlord.”
Rorin couldn’t argue with that. He closed his eyes briefly, drawing the magic to him. When he opened them again, his eyes were as black as his gelding, the Fardohnyans had finally stopped moving and Tejay Lionsclaw had raised her arm to give the signal that would start the war.
There was a pause, a pregnant moment of anticipation as the Fardohnyans settled into place and the Hythrun faced them across the field. A breathless, silent moment, long enough for men to realise they were about to die, but not nearly long enough to ponder why. As soon as Lady Lionsclaw dropped her arm, the air hissed with the flight of several thousand arrows arcing overhead and there was no turning back.
Many of the Fardohnyans recognised the sound and had the wit to raise their heavy shields against the deadly rain. Others did nothing—too close to their comrades to be able to lift anything, even if they recognised the danger. Either that or they were contemptuous of their enemy’s efforts to halt them. It was a foolish attitude and a costly one, Rorin thought. Even inexperienced fools will hit something if enough of them simultaneously shoot into a mass of closely packed bodies.
Rorin’s horse reared, a little unnerved by the noise and the sporadic lightning streaking the horizon. Horns rang out across the valley and the Fardohnyans began to move forward in a tight and disciplined formation, the sky behind them black with the advancing storm and almost keeping pace with them. Tejay raised her arm a second time, but held it there for what seemed like an eternity before she finally gave the command. Rorin flinched as the sky darkened with arrows a second time. Again, rank upon rank of the Fardohnyans fell, but their companions simply stepped over the dead and wounded, moving up to fill the gaps caused by the men who had fallen. His heart in his mouth, Rorin watched the advance, wondering why nobody was taking a shot at him or at Tejay dressed in her tempting jewelled armour. Wondering if Sunrise Province’s inexperienced archers would stand long enough to deliver the third volley they needed. Wondering what had possessed him to think there was any glory in battle. He wouldn’t blame the archers if they ran away. It was certainly what every instinct Rorin owned was telling him to do.
“Any minute now,” Tejay remarked, “they’ll let loose their own …” She ducked intuitively as a shower of arrows suddenly arced overhead from the Fardohnyan side and sliced into the ranks of archers behind them. “That’s the trouble with the enemy being in range. It means we’re in range of them, too.”
Arrows ploughed into the ground around them. Two or three bounced off Tejay’s armour. Frantically, Rorin extended the magical shield over both of them and watched in awe as the sky rained deadly missiles. He could barely hear Tejay over the cries of the men caught by the Fardohnyan volley. Screams filled the air, punctuated by thunder as the storm and the Fardohnyans moved closer.
The God of War might be Hythria’s god, Rorin thought, but it seems as if the God of Storms is on the side of Fardohnya.
Forcing her excited horse under control, Tejay raised her arm again. “We need to get that last volley away and those men out of here,” she told Rorin, yelling to be heard over the advancing infantry and the screams of their own wounded. “Once that rain sets in, this place is going to turn into a quagmire and we won’t be drawing anybody anywhere.”
Decisively she dropped her arm and another volley followed, this one much less certain than the others, a little more sporadic, a lot less confident. As soon as the arrows whooshed overhead, Tejay pulled her sword from its scabbard and raised it high—the pre-arranged signal for the Sunrise archers to retreat.
Seeing at least some of the enemy running from them, the inexorable Fardohnyan advance surged forward, the lead group laughing and calling insults to the retreating men as the Sunrise Raiders fled.
“My lady …” Rorin warned, with concern. She was facing the oncoming army as if she intended to take them on single-handed and was too tempting a target out here in front of her men in that damned jewelled armour. “Please! We need to fall back.”
Tejay hesitated and then wheeled her mount around, barely fifty paces ahead of the advancing Fardohnyans. As they galloped toward their own lines, Rorin noticed the Izcomdar and Elasapine light cavalry forming on their flanks. Despite there only being two, provinces represented among the cavalry, to the casual observer it looked as if every province was in attendance. Riders carried the banners of each province spread out among the Raiders, to give the impression this was all they’d been able to muster of Hythria’s once formidable strength.
Ten thousand men facing a force of close to thirty thousand and right now, Rorin thought, Axelle Regis probably thinks he can win.
Another volley arced
overhead from the Fardohnyan archers, this one peppering the ground around them. Protected by Rorin’s magical shield, they were invulnerable to the deadly missile shower, but the fleeing archers surrounding them weren’t nearly as lucky. Either side of them, terrified men screamed and fell as the Fardohnyan arrows rained down on them.
Then ahead of Tejay’s horse, another young man took a tumble, a blue-fletched arrow in his shoulder. The war horse reared at the sudden obstacle. She fought the beast down and turned it sharply, while Rorin’s mount charged ahead. A moment later, when he realised she was no longer by his side, Rorin turned to discover Tejay had jumped from her horse and was dragging the wounded young Raider to his feet.
Cursing, Rorin turned his mount, attempting to reach them, but the tide of frightened, retreating soldiers pursued by the deadly rain of Fardohnyan arrows pushed him back, even further out of reach. He could see Tejay, her arm around the lad, trying to lift the wounded boy into the saddle, while behind them the advancing horde of Fardohnyans, screaming some unintelligible war cry, thundered down the valley. Tejay had only moments until she was overrun. Rorin stretched out with his shield to protect her, knowing how useless a gesture it was. His magic could deflect arrows, toss a man across a room and maybe push aside falling rocks, as it had in the Widowmaker, but he couldn’t build a wall that would hold back an entire attacking army.
Desperate and helpless, he watched Tejay glance over her shoulder at the oncoming army. It was obvious she was aware of the danger, just as it was obvious she had no intention of abandoning the young man she’d stopped to rescue. The Fardohnyans were less than fifty paces away, their blood-curdling screams so loud Rorin could barely hear his own thoughts. Tejay struggled with the Raider, but the boy was fading fast and even though she was a fit and healthy woman, Tejay lacked the physical strength to lift a fullgrown man wearing armour onto the back of a horse.
Rorin suddenly cursed his own stupidity for not thinking of the solution sooner. Taking a risk that Tejay’s armour would protect her, he dropped the shield, reached out with his magic and picked up the young Raider, depositing him bodily across the saddle. Tejay jumped back, startled by the miraculous relocation of her burden, and then glanced across the field in Rorin’s direction when she realised such a thing could not have happened without some sort of magical intervention. He waved her forward, wishing he had Wrayan’s ability to communicate mentally and tell her to get the hell out of there …
He didn’t need to, however. It took Lady Lionsclaw a split second to work out Rorin had helped her, and another split second to realise she was out of time and—wearing metal armour—had no hope of remounting her husband’s big warhorse unaided.
With the Fardohnyans almost on top of Tejay, Rorin urged his horse forward against the tide of fleeing men, trying to reach her. With her sword in her right hand, Tejay had grabbed the horse by the bridle and with her wounded passenger draped across the saddle, she forced the beast across the arrow-littered field toward the Hythrun lines, no more able to run in Lernen’s decorative armour than she was able to mount a horse wearing it. Desperately, Rorin extended the shield again, hoping it was enough to reach her. He actually wasn’t quite sure where the outer edges were, and could only hope that it was enough to keep her safe.
It wasn’t, he discovered a moment later. Still frustratingly close, but desperately far from help, Tejay stumbled and fell, an arrow protruding from her left leg, embedded in the gap in her armour that allowed her knees to move.
Rorin cried out as she was knocked down. The last of the archers were running past him, many of them dragging their wounded companions. Desperate to reach her, he still wasn’t clear to go to Tejay’s aid, when the sound of horns split the thundery morning. Although he was only vaguely aware of it, behind him the much better disciplined Pentamor and Greenharbour infantry moved up to take their place.
Tejay was still closer to the Fardohnyans than her own lines when the first of the Fardohnyans caught up with her. Tejay must have heard the man approach. She staggered to her feet, turning just as the Fardohnyan raised his arm to strike her with his war axe. Almost casually, and despite the fact she was wounded, alone and had the whole Fardohnyan army bearing down on top of her, she ran her assailant through without flinching, and then grabbed the reins of her horse again and resumed her desperate bid for safety, slashing wildly at another Fardohnyan as he tried to prevent her reaching her own lines.
Sick with fear, Rorin was seriously contemplating picking her up and moving her bodily out of the fray when rescue appeared in the shape of a Pentamor captain Rorin didn’t even know. The officer must have also seen the danger to the Warlord of Sunrise. Before Rorin even thought of asking for help, the man shouted something behind him and a squad was rushing forward to surround the Warlord. The Fardohnyans overtook them just as the Raiders reached Tejay and her companion, but the Pentamor men were prepared for the attack and retreated in a much more orderly fashion than the Sunrise Raiders had, fighting off the Fardohnyans as they went with the wounded Raider and Warlord in their midst. Tejay stumbled along in the middle of them with the arrow still sticking out of her calf.
They caught up with Rorin a few moments later, a hair’s breadth ahead of the Fardohnyans. The men parted for them as they stumbled through to the safety of their own lines. Rorin flew from the saddle and caught Tejay as she staggered and fell again, crying out in agony as someone behind her bumped the arrow protruding from the back of her leg.
They made it through just as the two armies crashed into one another and the din left him speechless. It didn’t sound like men. The battle was a constant roar made of screams and cries and curses that all blended together to create a wall of intolerable noise. He shuddered and looked down at Lady Lionsclaw.
“My la—lord!” he cried over the unbearable cacophony, as he lowered her to the ground. “Can you make it a bit further? You have to make it a bit further.”
Tejay glared at him through the narrow slit in her helmet. She was not in so much pain that she’d forgotten the danger of answering him where they could be overheard, although given the battle noise surrounding them it was unlikely. She tried to stand up, but she wasn’t able to put any weight on the leg. With the battle behind their position now, Rorin dropped the magic shield again and wrapped his will around her, using it to lift her onto his own horse. Desperate to put the roar of the battle behind them, Rorin picked up the reins of her horse. Leading Tejay’s mount and the wounded soldier she’d rescued, Rorin pushed his way back through the attacking troops toward the position on the rise overlooking the field of conflict where the High Prince was waiting with his entourage.
It took quite some time to get off the field, but finally he got his two wounded charges clear of the melee. When he looked up at the pavilion, somewhat to Rorin’s surprise the Denikan prince-in-disguise, Prince Lunar Shadow Kraig of the House of the Rising Moon, was standing at the very front of the tent, watching over the battle with a brass telescope.
Rorin glanced over his shoulder, shaking from the narrowness of their escape. Fortunately, there was little chance they’d be caught up in it further. From now on the main battle was in the hands of the officers and men of Pentamor and Greenharbour.
Tejay glanced up at the command tent and then looked down at Rorin. “Get that damned thing out of my leg.”
He eyed the arrow warily. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said with a grimace. “It’s really just a flesh wound …”
“I can heal it,” he offered.
“No wonder Damin puts up with you.” He couldn’t see her expression because of the helmet, but she sounded impressed. “Do it then, lad. Before someone comes down to enquire what we’re doing.”
Taking a deep breath, Rorin gripped the shaft of the arrow and pulled. It came away easily. Tejay didn’t so much as whimper as he did it, and she was right, it was little more than a flesh wound, slicing into the muscle of her calf, one of the few places she was u
nprotected by the decorative jewelled armour she wore.
He placed his hand over the bleeding gash and drew on his magic, feeling the flesh knit as it healed. A few moments later he opened his eyes and looked up at her. He couldn’t read her face, but the set of her shoulders was visibly more relaxed.
“You really are a handy lad to know, aren’t you?” Tejay sounded as if she’d just come from ordering an inventory of the cellars, not narrowly escaping a battle with her life. Rorin was amazed. He was trembling like a leaf.
“I do have my uses, my … lord. Did you want me to heal your young friend there, too?”
Tejay shook her head and gathered up her reins. “I’ll take him to the medics. It’ll give me an excuse not to join Lernen for a bit longer. You go up there and give the High Prince my apologies. Tell him I’ll be along presently.”
A little bemused by her manner, Rorin left the Warlord of Sunrise with the young Raider draped over her horse, and headed up the short slope to the command pavilion.
“Rorin!” she called after him. He turned to look at her. “Your eyes.”
He stared at her blankly and then realised what she meant. He was still drawing on the magic of the Harshini. His eyes were still totally black and if he confronted the High Prince like that, who knew what his reaction might be. Tejay’s poise wasn’t an act at all, he decided. She was thinking much more clearly than he was.
With a final wave to the brave young woman posing as the Warlord of Sunrise Province, Rorin let the magic go, waiting a moment for his eyes to return to normal before he scrambled up the slope to report to the High Prince.
CHAPTER 64
Normally, the command pavilion should have been jammed with men, but Damin had arranged for Lerrien, Kraig and only a few of the High Prince’s most trusted slaves, dressed in armour to make them look like officers from a distance, to be stationed in the pavilion. The real battle would take place some miles from here, further down the valley, but the absence of the High Prince and a pavilion over which to observe the battle would strike a warning note with any enemy general worthy of his command. Axelle Regis and his officers had to believe this was where they were making their stand and that the ten thousand men below were all they had to throw into the fight.
Warlord Page 48
