"You have failed!"
Giarna"s words carried with them a sentence of doom. His eyes, black and yawning, seemed to rage for a moment with a deep, parasitic fire.
His fist lashed out, pummeling the Theiwar on the side of his head. But this was no ordinary blow. It connected squarely, and the dwarf"s thick skull erupted. The general"s other hand seized the corpse by the neck. His face flushed, and his eyes flared with an insane pleasure. In another moment, he cast the Theiwarnow a dried and shriveled huskto the side.
Kalawax was already forgotten as the general absently wiped his hand on his cloak, focusing on the problem of how to stem this most recent attack.
"For Thorbardin! For the king!"
A few human companies of swordsmen raced to block the surging waves of dwarves, but most of the Army of Ergoth was preoccupied with the elven sortie. Dunbarth Ironthumb led the way. A man raised a sword, holding his shield across his chest, and then chopped savagely downward at the dwarven commander. Dunbarth"s battle-axe, held high, deflected the blow with a ringing clash. In the next instant, the dwarven veteran slashed his weapon through a vicious swing, cutting underneath the human"s shield. The man shrieked in agony as the axe sliced open his belly.
"Charge! Full speed! To the tents!"
Dunbarth barked the commands, and the dwarves renewed their advance. Those humans who tried to stand in the way quickly perished, while others dropped their weapons and fled. Some of these escaped, while others fell beneath the volley of crossbow fire leveled by the dwarven missile troops.
Dunbarth led a detachment along a row of tents, chopping at the guy lines of each, watching the rude shelters collapse like wilting flowers. They came upon a supply
compound, where great pots of stew had been abandoned, still simmering. Seizing everything flammable, they tossed weapons and harnesses, even carts and wagons, onto the coals. Quickly searing tongues of flame licked upward, igniting the equipment and marking the spot of the dwarven advance.
"Onward!" cried Dunbarth, and again the dwarves moved toward Sithelbec.
The human troops didn"t react quickly to this new threat. Small bands perished as the stocky Hylar swept around them, and the waves of the attackers gave little time for the humans to muster a stand.
The sheer numbers of the defenders gave the humans an edge. Soon Dunbarth found some brave human contesting every forward step he tried to take. His axe rose and fell, and many an Ergothian veteran perished beneath that gory blade. But more and more of the humans stepped up.
"Stand firm!" cried Ironthumb.
Now the dwarves hacked and chopped in tight formation in the middle of a devastated human camp. A thousand men rushed against their left, met by the sharp clunk of crossbows and a volley of steel-tipped death. Hundreds fell, pierced by the missiles, and others turned to flee.
Swords met axes in five thousand duels to the death. The dwarves fought with courage and discipline, holding their ranks tight. They maimed and killed with brutal efficiency, but they were well matched by the courageous humans who pressed them in such great numbers.
But it was those numbers that would have to tell the tale. Slowly Dunbarth"s force contracted into a great ring. Amid the cries and the clanging and the shouting and screaming, Dunbarth slowly realized the tactical situation.
The dwarven legion was surrounded.
24.
Late Morning, Battle of Sithelbec.
Kith-Kanan watched the courageous stand of the dwarves with a lump of admiration burning in his throat. Dunbarth"s magnificent charge had taken the pressure off the elves at the gate, and now Kencathedrus"s force could surge forward again, expanding their perimeter against the distracted humans.
Attacked from two sides, the Army of Ergoth wavered and twitched like a huge but indecisive beast set upon by a swarm of stinging pests. Great ma.s.ses of human foot soldiers stood idle, waiting for orders while their comrades perished in desperate battles a few hundred yards away.
But now a sense of purpose seemed to settle across the humans. The tens of thousands of horses had been saddled. The riders, especially the light hors.e.m.e.n of General Giarna"s northern wing, had reached their steeds and were ready for battle.
Unlike the humans on foot, however, the cavalry did not race piecemeal into the fray, setting themselves up for defeat. Instead, they collected into companies and regiments and finally into ma.s.sive columns. The riders surged around the outside of the melee, gathering and positioning themselves for one crucial charge.
The elves of the sortie force could save themselves by a quick return to the fortress.
The dwarves, however, were isolated amid the wreckage of the south camp and had no such fallback. Lacking pikes, they would be virtually helpless against the onslaught Giarna was almost ready to unleash.
Kith-Kanan turned to Anakardain, who had remained at his side throughout the battle. "Now! Give the signal!" commanded the general.
The elven mage pointed a finger toward the sky. "Exceriate! Pyros, lofti!" he cried.
Instantly a crackling shaft of blue light erupted from his pointing hand, hissing upward amid a trail of sparks. Even in the bright sunlight, the bolt of magic stood out clearly, visible to all on the battlefield.
And, Kith devoutly hoped, to those who waited some twenty miles awaywaited for this very signal.
For several minutes after the flare, the battle raged, unchecked. Nor was there any sign that might alter this, though Kith-Kanan kept his eyes glued to the eastern horizon.
The sun hung midway between that horizon and the zenith of noon, though it seemed impossible that the battle had raged for barely three hours.
Now the human cavalry galloped from the pastures, an impressive ma.s.s of hors.e.m.e.n under the tight control of a skilled commander. They surged around the trampled encampment, veering toward the embattled dwarves.
Finally Kith-Kanan, still staring to the east, saw what he had been looking for: a line of tiny winged figures, a hundred feet above the ground and heading fast in this direction.
Sunlight glinted from shiny steel helms and sparkled from deadly lance heads.
"The chargesound it again!" barked the elven general to his trumpeter.
Another blare sounded across the field, and for a moment, the momentum of battle paused. Humans looked upward in surprise. Their officers, in particular, were puzzled by the command. The elven and dwarven troops, hard pressed now, seemed to be in no position to execute an offensive.
"Againthe charge!"
Again and again the call brayed forth.
Kith-Kanan watched the Windriders as the soaring line approached nearer and nearer, within two or three miles of the field. The elven general picked up his shield and checked to see that his sword hung loosely in his scabbard.
"Take over the command," Kith told Parnigar, at the same time grabbing the reins of Arcuballis and stepping to the griffon"s side.
The Wildrunner captain stared at his general. "Surely you"re not going out there! We need you here. Your plan is working! Don"t jeopardize it now!"
Kith shook his head, casting off the arguments. "The plan has a life of its own now.
If it fails, sound the recall and bring the elves back into the fortress. Otherwise, continue to give them support from the archers on the wallsand be ready to bring the rest of them out if the humans start to break."
"But, General!" Parnigar"s next objections died away as Kith-Kanan swung into his high leather saddle. Obviously he would not be deterred from his actions.
"Good luck to you," finished the captain, grimly looking over the field where thousands of humans still surged in attack.
"Luck has been with us so far," Kith replied. "May she stay with us just for a little longer."
Now the Windriders, still flying in their long, thin ranks, slowly nosed into shallow dives. They hadn"t yet been sighted by the humans on the ground, who had no reason to expect attack from the air.
Again the bugler brayed his charge. Arcuballis sprang from the tower, his powerful wings carrying Kith-Kanan into line with the other Windriders. At this cue, the griffons shrieked their harsh challenge, a jarring noise that cut cleanly through the chaos of the battle. Talons extended, beaks gaping, they howled downward from the heavens.
The whole pulse of the battle ceased as the shocking vision swept lower. Men, elves, and dwarves alike gaped upward.
Cries of alarm and terror swept through the human ranks. Units of men who had until now maneuvered in tightly disciplined formations suddenly scattered into uncontrolled mobs. The shadows of the griffons pa.s.sed across the field, and again the beasts shrilled their savage war cries.
If the reaction by the humans to the sudden attack was dramatic and p.r.o.nounced, the effect upon the horses was profound. At the first sound of the approaching griffons, all cohesion vanished from the cavalry units. Horses bucked and pitched, whinnied and shrieked.
The Windriders pa.s.sed over the entire battlefield a hundred feet above the ground.
Occasionally a human archer had the presence of mind to launch an arrow upward, but these missiles always trailed their targets by great distances before arcing back to earth, to land as often as not among the human ranks.
Elven archers along the walls of Silthelbec showered their stunned opponents with renewed volleys as their captains sensed the battle"s decisive moment.
"Againonce back, and we"ll take to the ground," Kith-Kanan cried, edging Arcuballis into a dive. The unit followed, and each griffon tucked its left wing, diving steeply and turning sharply to the left.
The creatures swung through a hundred-and-eighty-degree arc, losing about sixty feet of height. Now the cries of the elven riders joined those of the griffons as they raced over the human army. Bugles blared from the fortress walls and towers and from the ranks of the sortie force. Throaty dwarven cheers erupted from Dunbarth"s veterans, and the legion of Thorbardin quickly broke its defensive position, charging into the panicked humans surrounding them.
The elves of the sortie force, too, charged through the ditch into the humans who had been pressing them with such intensity. Columns of elves burst from the open gates of Sithelbec, reinforcing their comrades.
Kith-Kanan selected a level field, a wide area of pasture between the western and southern human camps, for a landing site and brought the griffons to earth there. His first target would be the brigade of armored knights that were struggling to regain control of their mounts.
The griffons barely slowed as they tucked their wings and sprang forward, propelled by their powerful leonine hindquarters while their deadly foreclaws reached forward as if eager to shred the flesh of the foe.
The single line of griffons, their riders still holding their lances forward, ripped into the bucking, heaving ma.s.s of panicked horses. No charge of plate-mailed knights ever struck with such killing force. Lances punctured armor and horses fell, gored by the claws of the savage griffons, and then the elven swords struck home.
Kith-Kanan buried his lance in the chest of a black-armored knight as the human"s horse bucked in terror. He couldn"t see the man"s face behind the closed shield of his dark helmet, but the steel tip of his weapon erupted from his victim"s back in a shower of blood. Arcuballis sprang, his claws tearing away the saddle of the heavy war-horse as the terrified animal crashed to the ground.
His lance torn away by the force of the charge, Kith drew his sword. A knight plunged nearby, desperately struggling to control his mount; Kith-Kanan stabbed him in the back. Another armored warrior, on foot and wielding a ma.s.sive morning star, swung the spiked ball at Arcuballis. The griffon reared back and then pounced on the man, tearing out his throat with a single powerful strike of his beak.
A chaotic jumble of shrieks and howls and moans surged around Kith, mingling with the pounding of hooves and the clash of sharp steel against plate mail. But even the superior armor of the humans couldn"t save them. With no control over their mounts, they could do little more than hold on and try to escape the maelstrom of death. Very few of them made it.
"To the air!" Kith cried, spurring Arcuballis into a powerful upward leap. Shattered knights covered the ground below them while the thundering ma.s.s of their horses stampeded right through a line of human archers who couldn"t get out of the way in time.
All around Kith-Kanan, the other griffons sprang into the air, and with regal grace, the Windriders once again soared across the field. Slowly they climbed, forming again into a long line, flying abreast.
As the griffon"s wings carried him upward, Kith looked across the field. In the distance rolled great clouds of dust. Some twenty thousand horses had already stampeded away from the battle, and these plumes marked their paths of flight. Human infantry fled from the tight ranks of the dwarven legion, while the elven reinforcements drove terrified humans into panic. Many of the enemy had dropped their weapons and thrown up their hands, pleading and begging for mercy.
Kith-Kanan veered toward the Ergothian foot soldiers, the line of Windriders following in precise formation. He took up his bow and carefully nocked an arrow. He let the missile fly, watching it dart downward and penetrate the shoulder of one of the foot soldiers. The fellow toppled forward, his helmet rolling in the mud, and Kith-Kanan got a jolt when he espied the long blond hair cascading around his body. Other arrows found targets among this company as the griffons pa.s.sed overhead, and the general noticed with surprise these other rnen, too, all had blond hair.
One of them turned and launched an arrow upward, and a nearby griffon shrieked, pierced through the wing. The animal"s limb collapsed, and the beast tipped suddenly to the side, plummeting to the earth among the Ergothian archers. The rider died from the force of the crash, but this didn"t stop the soldiers from hacking and chopping at his body until only a gory mess remained.
Kith shot another arrow, and a third, watching grimly as each took the life of one of these blond savages. Only when the humans had been riddled with losses did the Windriders consider the death of their comrade avenged. As they soared away, Kith-Kanan was struck by the narrow face of one of his victims, lying faceup in the mud.
Diving lower, he saw a pointed ear and blond hair.
Elves! His own people fighting for the Army of the Emperor of Ergoth! Growling in anger, he urged Arcuballis upward, the rest of his company following. With terrible purpose, he looked across the mud-and-blood-strewn field for an appropriate target.
He saw one group of hors.e.m.e.n, perhaps two thousand strong, that had rallied around a streaming silver bannerthe ensign of General Giarna himself, Kith knew. Instantly he veered toward this unit as the general was urging his reluctant troops into a renewed charge. The griffons flew low, no more than ten feet off the ground, and the creatures shrilled their coming.
Unaffected by the curses of their commanding general, the human riders allowed their horses to turn and scatter, unwilling to face the griffon cavalry. Kith-Kanan urged Arcuballis onward, seeking the general himself, but the man had vanished among the dusty, panicked ranks of his troops. He might already have been trampled to death, for all Kith-Kanan knew.
The Windriders flew across the field, landing and attacking here and there, wherever a pocket of the human army seemed willing to make a stand. Often the mere appearance
of the savage creatures was enough to break a formation, while occasionally they crashed into the defending ranks and the griffons tore with talons and beaks while their elven riders chopped and hacked with their lethal weapons.
The elves on the ground and their dwarven allies raced across the field, encouraging the total rout of the human army. More and more of the humans held up their hands in surrender as they concluded that escape was impossible. Many of the horses were stampeded, riderless, away from the field, lost to the army for the forseeable future. A great, streaming column of refugeesonce a proud army but now a ma.s.s of panicked, terrified, and defeated menchoked the few roads and scarred new trails across the prairie gra.s.slands.
When the Windriders finally came to earth before the gates of Sithelbec, they landed only because there were no more enemies left to fight. Huge columns of human prisoners, guarded by the watchful eyes of elven archers and dwarven axemen, stood listlessly along the walls of the fortress. Amidst the smoke and chaos of the camps, detachments of the Wildrunners poked and searched, uncovering more prisoners and marking stockpiles of supplies.
"General, come quickly!" Kith-Kanan looked up at the cry, seeing a young captain approaching. The elf"s face was pale, and he gestured toward a place on the field.
"What is it?" Sensing the urgency in the young soldier"s request, Kith hurried behind him. In moments, he knew the reason for the officer"s demeanor.
He found Kencathedrus lying among the bodies of a dozen humans. The old elf"s body bled from numerous ugly wounds.
"We beat them today," gasped Kith-Kanan"s former teacher and weaponmaster, managing a weak smile.
"Didn"t we, though?" The general took his friend"s head in his hands, looking toward the nearby officer. "Get the cleric!" he hissed.
"He"s been here," objected Kencathedrus. Kith-Kanan could read the result in the wounded elf"s eyes: There was nothing that even a cleric could do.
"I"ve lived to see this day. It makes my life as a warrior complete. The war is all but won. You must pursue them now. Don"t let them escape!"
Kencathedrus gripped Kith"s arm with surprising strength, nearly raising himself up from the ground. "Promise me," he gasped. "You will not let them escape!"