Chapter 92
Ulfilas was rapidly losing heart for this conflict, but a voice in his head was shouting at him that to turn and run would be the end of him. And that's true enough, I don't doubt. If we are broken here any that survive the battle will then have to survive the long march through Forn. Don't fancy that much, so we'd better get on and win this battle.
The men of Isiltir were responding to the horn blasts and Jael's screams urging them on, sweeping forward and curling in upon the lesser numbers that had swarmed out from the open gates of Dra.s.sil.
That at least is a stroke of good fortune. At least they are coming out here to fight so we don't have to try and climb those walls. Our numbers may still win the day.
Ulfilas felt a warrior's respect for Corban, even if he was his enemy. That running mount had been a thing of beauty, undertaken with sharp iron bearing down upon him, mere heartbeats separating him between life and death. It was as if the running mount had been distilled into that one moment, learned and practised by every warrior in every realm throughout their youth for that exact purpose.
Warriors on foot swept past him, running into the battle, the score of Jehar the same as Sumur, which gave Ulfilas a flare of hope all of a sudden I'm wis.h.i.+ng Nathair had forced a hundred of them upon us, like he did on Gundul and Lothar.
He saw the Jehar slam into a knot of enemy warriors only fifty paces ahead of him, a mixture of giants and men who looked remarkably similar to the Jehar that were with him, except that they wore surcoats with the white star blazing upon their chests.
Ulfilas had a sudden memory of the warriors at Gramm's hold who had cut him and his riders down so easily. Instinctively he pulled on his reins, but the press of men behind him was too great and he was forced on.
I am no coward, but I am no fool either, and I have no death-wish upon me.
He saw that he was about to enter this battle whether he wanted to or not. He slipped Jael's banner into the leather cup on his saddle that usually held his spear, drew his sword and kicked his horse on, choosing a warrior who looked like one out of Gramm's hold.
Someone normal to fight.
His horse's shoulder ploughed into the man, sending him reeling, Ulfilas' sword rising and falling, crunching into the warrior's helm, dropping him instantly.
He kicked his horse on, swinging left and right with his blade, leaving a wake of b.l.o.o.d.y wounds and dying men. He started to think that they could still win this battle, though all was chaos and blood around him. It was almost impossible to tell how the battle was faring. He hacked at a spear jabbing at him, snapped the shaft, stabbed into the face of the warrior wielding it, heard a scream, saw the man go down, and dug his heels into his horse.
For a moment there was a lull around him. To his left he saw Corban, still upon his horse, hacking at men of Isiltir with maniacal energy; close to him there was a flash of white fur and fangs, and about the young warrior a knot of fighters gathered to protect him a huge man with a war-hammer, a red-haired woman with wolven claws like Corban's, dripping with gore, and one of the Jehar mounted and trailing arcs of blood with his sword he looked remarkably like the warrior who had unhorsed Ulfilas at Gramm's hold, only younger and more battle-frenzied.
Not going that way, then.
He yanked upon his reins and suddenly there was one of the Jehar in front of him one of his Jehar fighting a silver-haired giant with one eye and a black axe. The Jehar was fast, darting in and cutting at the giant's leg, eliciting a howl of pain or rage, but then a huge knife smashed into the Jehar's chest, hurling it from its feet. The injured giant lumbered forwards and swung his axe, taking the Jehar's head off as it tried to rise, and then there was a screeching shadow-demon materializing in the air right in front of Ulfilas, his horse screaming and rearing. He managed to control his mount, saw another giant striding forwards, smaller, slimmer female? It's so hard to tell the difference but still clearly a giant, two belts criss-crossing her chest with an abundance of those oversized knives sheathed in them. As Ulfilas watched, she bent down and recovered her knife from the chest of the decapitated Jehar and then looked about for a new target.
Her eyes settled upon him.
The bad feeling that Ulfilas had ignored reared up now, a flare of fear and foreboding, and he ducked low in his saddle as the air whistled over his head and something sharp missed him by a handspan. He kicked his horse on. It was well trained and it stepped agilely to the left and leaped away, sending those about it reeling, friend and foe alike. For a handful of insane moments the horse rose and fell, forging its way through the battle like a leviathan through stormy seas, then it burst into clearer ground.
Battle still raged here, but it was islands of violence upon the plains surrounding Dra.s.sil, rather than a constant sea. Everywhere Ulfilas looked the red-cloaked men of Isiltir were falling to giants and to sword-wielding Jehar. He saw a tall dark-haired warrior in blood-spattered mail, at first thought him a giant, but then realized he was a little too short, and too slim and elegant, too graceful in his death dealing. Even as Ulfilas watched, this warrior cut down three men of Isiltir in as many breaths.
Further away he saw more of those shadow-demons appearing in the air, hovering like a dense mist as they screamed their rage and then drifting apart in the wind. He knew by now that their appearance marked the death of one of Nathair's Jehar.
Whatever they are and I'm not sure I want to know I do know that this battle is lost.
Always the pragmatic man, Ulfilas looked to the north, saw the remnants of the old road they had followed here. The prospect of fleeing through Forn was becoming more appealing with every redcloaked death around him.
Run, live a little longer; stay and die very soon.
It wasn't much of a choice.
He lifted the banner of Isiltir from its harness on his saddle and dropped it to the ground, then spurred his horse to the north, moving at a trot, calling men to him as he went. Within a hundred paces he had close to two hundred men following him, then another hundred. He reined in as the land began to rise and looked back over the battlefield.
The warband of Isiltir was breaking apart, men beginning to turn
Looks as if he has the same idea as me.
With a shake of his head Ulfilas spurred his mount up the slope, towards the trees.
Then the ground in front of him exploded.
Fifty paces or so up the slope turf and dirt erupted into the air, beneath it something dark and round emerging from the ground.
Ulfilas swayed in his saddle, jerked away, then realized what it was.
A huge trapdoor.
Men and women with long bows in their hands ten, twenty, thirty, more were surging out of the ground. Even as Ulfilas stared in frozen shock they formed a line, drew arrows from quivers, nocked, drew and released. Straight at him and the warriors about him.
He threw himself backwards, out of his saddle, heard the soft thunk of arrows sinking into flesh, his horse rearing and cras.h.i.+ng to the ground, legs kicking, all about him men falling with feathered shafts buried in their flesh.
Ulfilas thrashed on the ground, one foot caught in a stirrup, flicked it free, rose to one knee in time to see the archers drawing and shooting again. He threw himself flat on his face, heard more screaming around him, dragged himself upright and stared frantically around.
The men who had followed him were wavering, though they still outnumbered the archers at least three or four to one.
Those archers stand between me and freedom. A good charge should see to them, Ulfilas thought, dragging his sword from his scabbard, waving it in the air, yelling to his warriors. He took a few steps forward, heard the boots of men following behind him, saw the archers in front s.n.a.t.c.hing for arrows, saw panic stirring in some. He singled out one in the centre of the line, slim, small, resolutely drawing another arrow from his quiver, something about him saying that he was the leader of these archers.
I'm going to take your head, Ulfilas thought, the need to kill, to vent his frustration at this most disastrous of days rearing up within him. He started to run.
Then someone else climbed out of the hole, a lone Jehar warrior, small, a woman. She saw him charging at the archer and her eyes narrowed. She drew her sword. Behind her more men were appearing from the hole in the ground, men clothed in leather and fur holding single-bladed axes in their fists.
Gramm's men.
Twenty or thirty of them as well, forming a line and throwing their axes. Ulfilas threw himself to the ground again, a mouth full of dirt, a body cras.h.i.+ng down beside him, face a b.l.o.o.d.y ruin with an axe-haft poking from it.
As Ulfilas looked up he saw the axe men start to run down the slope, pulling fresh axes from their backs, and behind them another wave of warriors pouring from the hole, these dressed strangely, sc.r.a.ps of leather armour wrapped around forearms and shoulders, most of them carrying bucklers and short swords or knives.
b.o.l.l.o.c.ks to this.
Ever the pragmatist, Ulfilas scrambled to his feet and ran the other way.
Something thudded into his back, a hard punch that sent him sprawling and knocked the air from his lungs. He tried to push himself up but found his arms weren't working as well as they should, felt a dull ache in his back, a tingling numbness. He managed to get his right elbow under him, push up, but his left arm wasn't doing what it was told.
Must get up. To stay is to die.
He coughed, saw blood speckle the ground close to his face.
What?
Then there was a pressure upon his back someone's boot? an unpleasant tugging sensation, closely followed by a wet ripping sound. The pressure on his back disappeared, replaced by a tingling pain, a boot slipping under his chest and flipping him over.
He gasped, looked up into a bearded face.
'Well, well,' the face said, 'I was hoping I'd run into you.'
It was Wulf, and he was smiling.
He was holding an axe in his fist, blood dripping from its edge. He raised it high, above his head, and Ulfilas screamed.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO.
HAELAN.
Haelan watched the battle from the walls of Dra.s.sil.
It had been Swain's idea, but Haelan had not been difficult to persuade. He felt proud that Corban had asked him to watch over Storm's cubs, but as the horns rang out from Dra.s.sil's walls, announcing the arrival of Jael's warband, he had felt a desperate need just to see. So when Swain suggested a way of him doing both of those tasks. Well...
So here they were, Haelan, Swain and Sif, standing upon a deserted patch of the western wall, each of them with a wolven cub under either arm, Pots was sitting at his feet, looking up at him like he felt a little left out. They'd put the cubs in a wide, deep basket of willow, the three of them carrying it all the way to the battlements. The cubs had become restless, though, so they'd decided to get them out for a while and let them watch the battle too.
They liked it, or at least seemed to, they were quiet enough.
Haelan was finding it hard to breathe, at various moments had felt that his heart was lurching out of his chest, that despair would overwhelm him, closely followed by sheer joy that he was sure would cause him to explode.
They'd reached the wall just as Corban had begun his duel with the black-clothed warrior, one of the Jehar obviously. Within moments Haelan was certain that Corban was going to die. Tears had blurred his eyes long before the end, and then he had cried fresh tears, these ones of joy when Corban had sent his enemy's head spinning through the air.
And then such treachery, Jael setting his s.h.i.+eldmen to ride Corban down, after what he had just survived, just achieved.
And then the running mount.
When he saw s.h.i.+eld and Storm pounding across the open s.p.a.ce he had cheered, screamed, exhorted them to greater speed, the voices of Swain and Sif mingling with his own.
If there had been any doubt in Haelan's mind that Corban was the greatest hero the Banished Lands had ever known, that succession of events had confirmed it beyond all question. He'd fight anyone who dared to say differently.
And now the whole plain along the western wall boiled with battle.
'We're going to win,' Swain was yelling, putting his two cubs back in the basket and leaping up and down.
Of course we are.
After Corban's duel and escape from Jael's s.h.i.+eldman, it seemed that victory was inevitable. He was only worried now about who might fall along the way.
Tahir is down there, fighting for me.
His eyes scanned the field, but it was so hard to make out individuals amongst the press and heave of battle. Giants were easy enough to follow, Balur One-Eye particularly, with his silver hair and black axe, swathes of blood consistently bursting around him, from this distance looking like droplets of dew on morning gra.s.s. And Corban he could see, still mounted, with Storm always close to him, leaping and tearing.
The cubs under his arms began to squirm so he put them back in the basket, stroking his favourite, a brindle b.i.t.c.h with a face as black as night.
He saw Jael's banner flying in the centre of the battle, then it moved steadily northwards, a single rider breaking out from the heart of the battle, a steady motion towards the northern flank. Then the banner disappeared, the rider still visible, heading further and further out, men of Isiltir gathering in a great ma.s.s about him.
They are fleeing. Hope swelled in his chest, something telling him that the battle was coming to its last stages now.
Then he saw Jael, his white horsehair plume blowing in the wind, still upon his horse, a knot of warriors with him. They headed steadily towards the southern edge of the battlefield, reached the treeline, then stopped as a handful of giants stormed through them. Haelan gripped the battlement walls, knuckles whitening, praying, begging for Jael to fall. All was confusion, flesh and iron and blood merging in a chaotic explosion for a dozen heartbeats. A giant fell, of that Haelan was sure, and then figures were disappearing into the trees. Jael was nowhere to be seen.
From Haelan's vantage-point it looked as if the whole battlefield paused for a moment, then rippled, like the death-spasm of a dying animal.
The trickle of those fleeing turned into a flood now, red-cloaks falling away from the ma.s.s of combat in tens and twenties, and then they were all fleeing, the warband of Dra.s.sil following, slaying with impunity.
Then a sudden thought struck Haelan.
Those men fleeing are men of Isiltir. My people.
'Watch the cubs,' he blurted to Swain and Sif, 'and don't let Pots follow me.' And he was running down the wall's stairwell, leaping steps two at a time.
In the courtyard before the main gates he climbed into the saddle of a fully tacked horse. It was a little big for him, the stirrups too long, but it was the most suitable of what was left and he was a good rider, had been sat in a saddle as far back as he could remember. Without any more thought he clicked his tongue and rode out through the gates.
It was a different world down here, the battle from above seeming to have something serene about it, playing out like the swirls of sea and sand as the tide comes in. Down here it was loud, filled with the screams of the dying and the yelling of the living, and it stank, of blood and metal and excrement. Everywhere was chaos. He scanned the field for Corban, could see men of Isiltir fleeing, giants striding amongst them wielding their axes and hammers, then he caught a flash of bone-white fur and headed for it.
Before he'd covered a hundred paces he heard running to one side, felt a flash of fear. I am part of the reason Jael came here, led a warband of thousands through Forn Forest with the goal of seeing me dead.
'What are you doing down here, laddie?' a voice called out, and relief swept him.
Tahir.
Relief at both Tahir being alive and the fact that it was not a warrior coming to separate his head from his shoulders.
'I've an idea,' Haelan said, 'and I need to find Corban.'
Tahir looked at him, was clearly wrestling with the idea of marching him straight back to the safety of Dra.s.sil.
'All right then. s.h.i.+ft along then, and I'll climb up there with you.'
They found Corban drinking from a water skin, drenched in blood, his hair plastered to his head. A handful of people were gathered around him, Gar and Meical, Coralen and Farrell and Laith, as well as Balur One-Eye and Ethlinn. And of course Storm.
The battle had moved away from them, or rather the chasing of the broken and fleeing warband, only here and there the sound of iron marking real combat, a few knots of men fighting rearguard actions and retreating in a more orderly fas.h.i.+on.
'Little one's got something to say to you,' Tahir said as they rode up.
Haelan looked at the fierce bloodstained faces around him and quailed a little. He swallowed his fears, knowing what needed to be said.
'These are my people,' Haelan told them. 'Jael is fled, I think, or maybe dead. I saw him from the battlements, over there.' He pointed south to the trees. 'The rest of them, they might stop if I ask them, if they are offered mercy.'