Brohl turned to one of his runners. ‘Inform the Atri-Preda that we face a cavalry charge, and I strongly advise she order the Bluerose to mount up for a flank attack-the sooner we are done with this the sooner we can join the fight on the seabed.’
He watched as the youth rushed off.
The wedges were on the flat now, he understood, employing the step and settle advance Bivatt had devised in order to adjust to the mud. They were probably nearing the Awl lines, although yet to clash. The Atri-Preda had another tactic for that moment, and Brohl Handar wished her well.
The slaying of the mages had been a grim opening to this day’s battle, but the Overseer’s confidence had, if anything, begun to grow.
These fools charge us! They charge a forest of spears! It is suU tide!
Finally, he realized, they could end this. Finally, this absurd war could end. By day’s close, not a single Awl would remain alive. Not one.
The thunder of hoofs. Lances lowered, the horses with necks stretched-out, the warriors hunching down-closer, closer, then, all at once, chaos.
No horse could be made to run into a wall of bristling spears. In the midst of the Awl lancers were mounted archers, and as the mass of riders drew to within a hundred paces of Edur, these archers rose on their stirrups and released a swarm of arrows.
The first row of Edur, kneeling with spears planted, had leaned their rectangular Letherii shields against their shoulders-the best they could manage with both hands on the spear shaft. Those immediately behind them were better protected, but the spear-hedge, as the Letherii called it, was vulnerable.
Warriors screamed, spun round by the impact of arrows. The row rippled, wavered, was suddenly ragged.
Horses could not be made to run into a wall of bristling spears. But, if sufficiently trained, they could be made to hammer into a mass of human flesh. And, among those still facing spears positioned at chest height, they could jump.
A second flight of arrows slanted out at forty or so paces. Then a third at ten paces.
The facing side of the Edur square was a ragged mess by the time the charge struck home. Beasts launched themselves into the air, straining to clear the first spears, only to intercept other iron-headed points-but none of these were butted into the ground, and while serrated edges slashed through leather plates and the flesh beneath, many were driven aside or punched back. In the gaps in the front line, the horses plunged into the ranks of Edur, flinging warriors away, trampling others. Lances thudded into reeling bodies, skidded from desperate shield blocks, kissed faces and throats in a welter of blood.
Brohl Handar, positioned behind his Edur square, stared in horror as the entire block of Arapay warriors seemed to recoil, flinch back, then inexorably fold inward from the facing side.
The Awl wedge had driven deep and was now exploding from within the disordered square. The impact had driven warriors back, fouling those behind them, in a rippling effect that spread through the entire formation.
Among the Awl, in the midst of jostling, stumbling Edur, heavy cutting swords appeared as lances were shattered, splintered or left in bodies. In screaming frenzy, the savages were hacking down on all sides.
Horses went down, kicking, lashing out in their death-throes. Spears stabbed upwards to lift Awl warriors from their saddles.
The square was seething madness.
And horses continued to go down, whilst others backed, despite the shrieking commands of their riders. More spears raked riders from their saddles, crowds closing about individuals.
All at once, the Awl were seeking to withdraw, and the Edur warriors began pushing, the square’s flanks advancing in an effort to enclose the attackers.
Someone was screaming at Brohl Handar. Someone at his side, and he turned to see one of his runners.
Who was pointing westward with frantic gestures.
Bluerose cavalry, forming up.
Brohl Handar stared at the distant ranks, the sun-lashed lance-heads held high, the horses’ heads lifting and tossing, then he shook himself. ‘Sound close ranks! The square does not pursue! Close ranks and let the enemy withdraw!’
Moments later, horns blared.
The Awl did not understand. Panic was already among them, and the sudden recoiling of those now advancing Edur struck them as an opportunity. Eager to disengage, the horse-warriors sprang away from all contact-twenty paces-archers twisting in their saddles to loose arrows-forty, fifty paces, and a copper-faced officer among them yelling at his troops to draw up, to reform for another charge-and there was thunder in the west, and that warrior turned in his saddle, and saw, descending upon his milling ranks, his own death.
His death, and that of his warriors.
Brohl Handar watched as the commander frantically tried to wheel his troops, to set them, to push the weary, bloodied beasts and their equally weary riders into a j meeting charge-but it was too late. Voices cried out in fear as warriors saw what was descending upon them. The confusion redoubled, and then riders were breaking, fleeing-
All at once, the Bluerose lancers swept into them.
Brohl Handar looked down upon his Arapay-Sister Shadow, but we have been wounded. ‘Sound the slow advance!’ he commanded, stepping forward and drawing his sword. ‘We will finish what the Bluerose have begun.’ I want those bastards. Every damned one of them. Screaming in pain, dying by our blades!
Something dark and savage swirled awake within him. Oh, there would be pleasure in killing. Here. Now. Such pleasure.
As the Bluerose charge rolled through the Awl cavalry, a broad-bladed lance caught Natarkas-still shrieking his commands to wheel-in the side of the head. The point punched through low on his left temple, beneath the rim of the bronze-banded helm. It shattered that plate of the skull, along with his cheekbone and the orbit of the eye. Then drove still deeper, through brain and nasal cavity.
Blackness bloomed in his mind.
Beneath him-as he toppled, twisted round when the lance dragged free-his horse staggered before the impact of the attacker’s own mount; then, as the weight of Natarkas’s body rolled away, the beast bolted, seeking a place away from this carnage, this terror.
All at once, open plain ahead and two other riderless horses racing away, heads high in sudden freedom.
Natarkas’s horse set off after them.
The chaos in its heart dwindled, faded, fluttered away with every exultant breath the beast drew into its aching lungs.
Free!
Never! Free!
Never again!
On the seabed, the heavy infantry wedges advanced beneath the now constant hail of descending arrows. Skittering on raised shields, glancing from visored helms, stabbing down through gaps in armour and chance ricochets. Soldiers cried out, stumbled, recovered or sought to fall-but these latter were suddenly grasped by hands on either side and bodies closed in, keeping them upright, feet now dragging as life poured its crimson gift to the churned mud below. Those hands then began pushing the dead and the dying forward, through the ranks. Hands reaching back, grasping, tugging and pulling, then pushing into yet more waiting hands.
Through all of this, the chant continued, the wait beat marked each settling step.
Twelve paces from the Awl on their islands of dry, able now to see into faces, to see the blazing eyes filled with fear or rage.
This slow advance could not but unnerve the waiting Awl. Human spear-heads, edging ever closer. Massive iron fangs, inexorably looming, step, wait, step, wait, step.
And now, eight paces away, arrow-riddled corpses were being flung forward from the front ranks, the bodies sprawling into the mud. Shields followed here and there. Boots settled atop these things, pushing them into the mud.