“Sire! The right flank—” the herald began again, but Duncan waved a hand to stop him.
“I heard you,” he said.
It was three days since the battle at Hackham Heath, where Morgarath’s army had been routed by a surprise attack from their rear, led by the Ranger Halt. The enemy were in full retreat. By rights, Morgarath should have surrendered. His continued resistance was simply costing more and more casualties to both sides. But the rebellious lord was never concerned with preserving lives. He knew he was defeated, but still he wanted to inflict as many casualties as possible on Duncan and his men. If they were to be victorious, he would make them pay dearly for their victory.
As for his own forces, he cared little for their losses. They were nothing more than tools to him and he was willing to keep throwing them against the royal army, sacrificing hundreds of troops but causing hundreds of casualties in the process.
So for three days, he had retreated to the southeast, turning where the terrain favored him to fight a series of savage and costly battles. He had picked the spot for this latest stand well. It was a narrow plain set between two steep hills, and recent rain had softened the ground so that Duncan could not deploy his cavalry. It was up to the infantry to throw themselves against the Wargals in hard, slogging, desperate fighting.
And always lurking in the back of Duncan’s mind was that one mistake from him, one lucky throw of the dice for Morgarath, could see the Wargal army gain the initiative once more. Fortune in battle was a fickle mistress and the war that Duncan had hoped was ended at Hackham Heath was still there to be won—or lost by a careless order or an ill-considered maneuver.
Momentum, Duncan thought. It was all-important in a situation like this. It was vital to maintain it. Keep moving forward. Keep driving them back. Hesitate, even for a few minutes, and the ascendancy could revert to the enemy.
He glanced to his left. The flank on that side, predominantly troops from Norgate and Whitby, reinforced by troops from some of the smaller fiefs, was forging ahead strongly. In the center, the armies from Araluen and Redmont were having similar success. That was to be expected. They were the four largest fiefs in the Kingdom, the backbone of Duncan’s army. Their knights and men-at-arms were the best trained and disciplined.
But the right flank had always been a potential weakness. It was formed from a conglomerate of Seacliff, Aspienne and Culway fiefs, and because the three fiefs were all about the same size, there was no clear leader among them. Knowing this, Duncan had appointed Battlemaster Norman of Aspienne Fief as the overall commander. Norman was an experienced leader, most capable of melding such a disparate force together.
As if he were reading the King’s thoughts, the herald spoke again.
“Battlemaster Norman is dying, sire. A Wargal burst through the lines and speared him. Norman has been taken to the rear, but I doubt he has long to live. Battlemasters Patrick and Marat are unsure what to do next, and Morgarath has taken advantage of the fact.”
Of course, thought Duncan, Morgarath would have recognized the banners of the smaller fiefs on that flank and guessed at the possible confusion that might result if the commander were put out of action. Once Norman was down, the rebel commander had undoubtedly sent one of his elite companies of shock troops to attack the right flank.
Momentum again, Duncan thought. Only this time it was working against him. He peered keenly toward the fighting on the right flank. He could see the line had stopped moving forward, saw his men take the first hesitant step backward. He needed a commander to take charge there and he needed him fast. Someone who wouldn’t hesitate. Someone with the force of personality to rally the troops and get them going forward once more.
He glanced around him. Arald of Redmont would have been his choice. But Arald was being tended by the healers. A crossbow quarrel had hit him in the leg and he was out of action for the rest of the battle. Arald’s young Battlemaster, Rodney, had taken his place and was fighting furiously, urging the Araluen forces forward. He couldn’t be spared.
“They need a leader ... ,” Duncan said to himself.
“I’ll go.” A calm voice spoke from behind him.
Duncan spun around and found himself looking into the steady, dark eyes of Halt, the Ranger. The dark black beard and untrimmed hair hid most of his features, but those eyes held a look of steadiness and determination. This was not a man who would bicker over command or dither over what had to be done. He would act.
Duncan nodded. “Go on then, Halt. Get them moving forward again or we’re lost. Tell Patrick and Marat—”
He got no further. Halt smiled grimly. “Oh, I’ll tell them, all right,” he said. Then he swung up onto the small shaggy horse that was standing by him and galloped away toward the right flank.
3
ABELARD’S HOOVES THUNDERED DULLY ON THE SOFT TURF AS they drew near to the trouble spot. Now that he was closer, Halt could see that the Wargal attack was being spearheaded by one of Morgarath’s special units. They were all larger than normal, selected for size and strength and savagery.
And they cared nothing for their own losses as they battered their way forward. Maces, axes and heavy two-handed swords rose and fell and swept in horizontal arcs.
Men from the Araluen army fell before them as they advanced in a solid wedge shape.
Halt was still forty meters away and he knew he would arrive too late. The Araluen line had bowed backward before the onslaught. Any second now it would crumble unless he acted.
He reined Abelard to a sliding stop.
“Steady,” he said, and the little horse stood rock-still for him, disregarding the terrifying cacophony of battle and the awful, metallic smell of fresh blood.
Halt unslung his bow and stood in his stirrups. Then he began to shoot. He had three arrows in the air before the first struck the Wargal leading the attacking wedge. Halt had chosen his most powerful bow for the battle, one with a ninety-pound draw weight at full extension. Forty meters was point-blank range for such a weapon. The heavy, black-shafted arrow slammed through the beast’s corselet of toughened leather and bronze plates and dropped him where he stood. Then, in rapid succession, the next two arrows struck home and two more Wargals died. Then more and more arrows arrived, each with a deadly hiss-thud, as Halt emptied his quiver in a devastating display of accuracy.
He aimed for the Wargals at the head of the wedge, so that as they fell they impeded the progress of those behind them. It was the sort of shooting no ordinary archer would attempt. If he missed, he might well send his arrows into the backs of the Araluen soldiers facing the Wargals.
But Halt was no ordinary archer. He didn’t miss.
Out of arrows, he urged Abelard forward once more. As he reached the rear of the line, he dropped from the saddle and ran to join the struggling troops. On the way, he stopped, tossed his cloak to one side and picked up a round shield lying discarded in the grass—the Ranger two-knife defense was no use against a Wargal’s heavy weapons. He hesitated a second, looking at a long sword that lay beside a dead knight’s outstretched hand. But it was a weapon he was unfamiliar with and he discarded the notion of using it. He was used to his saxe knife, and its heavy, razor-sharp blade would be perfect for close fighting. He drew the saxe now as he ran forward, forcing his way between the soldiers.
“Come on!” he shouted. “Follow me! Push them back!”
The soldiers parted before him until he was at the front of the line and facing a huge, snarling Wargal squad leader. The brute was only a little taller than Halt but was massive in the shoulders and chest and probably weighed twice as much as he did. Halt saw the red mouth open as the Wargal bared his fangs at this new enemy. A spiked mace swung horizontally at him and he ducked beneath it, instantly coming upright and driving forward with the saxe, sinking it deep into the beast’s ribs.
He saw a sword coming from the left, blocked it with the shield, then kicked the huge Wargal off the point of his saxe, sending the dying monster sprawling.
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“Come on!” he shouted again, slashing his blade across another Wargal’s throat and springing forward. He dodged another sword and stabbed twice at a Wargal facing him, buffeting it aside with the shield as it doubled over in agony. The Wargals were immensely powerful. But they were clumsy, and Halt had the speed and reflexes of a snake. He ducked and weaved and cut and stabbed, carving a path forward. And now he sensed someone moving up behind him, heard another voice echoing his cry.
“Come on! Forward! Push them back.”
The hesitation in the Wargals’ attack caused by Halt’s volley of arrows, and his sudden appearance as he darted forward and took the fight to the enemy, gave the Araluen soldiers new heart. They began to follow Halt and his unidentified companion, moving forward once more.
Halt turned momentarily to glance back. He saw a stockily built sergeant a pace behind him and to his right, armed with a spear. As Halt looked, the sergeant thrust the spear forward, skewering a Wargal so that it screeched in agony. The man grinned at him.
“Keep going, Ranger! You’re getting in my way!”
Behind him, others were following, forming their own wedge now and driving deeper and deeper into the Wargal line.
Halt faced the front once more. A Wargal came at him, ax drawn back for a killing blow. The sergeant’s spear shot forward over Halt’s shoulder, taking the Wargal in the throat and stopping it dead.
“Thanks!” Halt called, without looking. Two more Wargals were coming at him. He sidestepped the sword thrust of the first, felt his foot turn as he trod on the arm of a dead enemy, and tumbled sideways to the ground.
The second Wargal had swung a club at him and the stumble probably saved his life. The club struck only a glancing blow instead of shattering his skull with a direct hit. But it stunned him and he hit the ground, losing his grip on the saxe knife. He tried to rise but was hampered by the shield on his left arm. Dully, he realized that the Wargal with the club was standing on the shield, preventing his rising. He looked up, still dazed by the glancing blow, and saw the club go up again.
So, this is it, he thought. He wondered why he felt such a stolid acceptance of his own death. Maybe the blow to the head had slowed him down. He watched, waiting calmly, fatalistically, for the club to descend.
Then a flicker of light blazed over him, gleaming off a spearhead that buried itself in the Wargal’s chest. The force behind the spear thrust shoved the creature backward. It gave a hoarse screech of pain and fell, passing out of Halt’s line of sight. The sergeant jumped nimbly over Halt’s fallen form, dragged his spear free of the dead Wargal’s body and stood with feet braced wide apart, protecting Halt from further attacks. He thrust again with the spear and another Wargal retreated hastily. Then a battleax smashed down onto the spear shaft, and the heavy iron head went spinning away, leaving the sergeant with nothing more than the two-and-a-half-meter ash spear shaft.
Halt’s head swam and his vision blurred. The blow to the head had definitely done him some damage. His limbs were weak and he couldn’t find the strength to rise. The scene before him seemed to unfold at a slow, dreamlike pace.
The sergeant took one look at the headless spear, shrugged, then whirled the heavy ash shaft in a circle, smashing it against another Wargal’s helmet. Holding the shaft in both hands now, like a quarterstaff, he thrust underarm at a second enemy, driving the end deep into the Wargal’s midsection.
“Look out!” Halt’s attempted shout of warning was nothing more than a croak. He had seen a third Wargal, crouching low and concealed behind his companions, a jagged-edged sword ready to thrust.
One of the injured Wargals grabbed at the spear shaft, dragging the sergeant off balance, and the sword blade shot forward like a serpent striking. Red blood flowed from the sergeant’s side where the sword had taken him. But still he didn’t falter. He jerked the spear shaft free of the enemy’s grip and, with an overhand action as if he were casting a spear, slammed it straight forward, hitting the Wargal who had wounded him straight between the eyes with the blunt end of the shaft.
The Wargal screamed and fell, throwing his hands to his shattered forehead and dropping the sword as he did so. Instantly, the sergeant seized it, tossing the spear shaft aside. Now he struck left and right with blinding speed and opened great slashing wounds in two more Wargals. One fell where he stood, while the other spun away, blundering into his companions, knocking two of them over. The sergeant parried a short iron spear thrust coming from his right. Another stabbed out from the left and struck him in the thigh. More blood flowed. Yet still he fought on. He killed the Wargal behind the spear with almost contemptuous ease. Then he slashed and cut left and right with the sword, taking a dreadful toll on any enemy who came within its reach. A knife thrust cut him in the side. He ignored it and dispatched the knife wielder with a backhanded slash.
Then Halt saw something he thought he’d never see.
As the bloodstained figure drove forward, sword rising and falling, hacking and cutting and slashing and stabbing, a tide of fear swept over the Wargals.
Morgarath’s handpicked shock troops, who up until now had feared nothing short of mounted, armored knights, fell back in terror before the bloodied, death-dealing figure with the sword.
And as they did so, the men of the Araluen army found new heart and swept forward in the wake of the sergeant. He was badly wounded, but he continued fighting until his comrades surged past him, slamming into the demoralized Wargals and screaming in triumph.
For a moment, the sergeant stood in an empty space on the battlefield. Then, as the second rank of Araluen fighters poured past him to reinforce the first, and the Wargal line broke and retreated in total confusion, their hoarse, wordless screams filling the air, his knees gave way and he sagged to the ground.
The noise of the battle moved away from them, receding like a tide, and Halt finally managed to free his arm from the shield, still pinned to the ground by a Wargal’s dead body. He tried to rise to his feet, but the effort was beyond him. Instead, he crawled painfully to the fallen sergeant, dragging himself over the sprawled bodies of the Wargals the man had killed.
In spite of his wounds, the sergeant was still breathing, and he turned his head painfully as the Ranger approached. He managed a weak smile.
“We showed them, Ranger, didn’t we?”
Halt could barely hear the voice, and his own was a croak as he answered. “That we did. What’s your name, sergeant?”
“Daniel.”
Halt gripped his forearm. “Hold on, Daniel. The healers will be here soon.”
He tried to put as much encouragement into the words as possible. But the sergeant shook his head.
“Too late for me.” Suddenly the man’s eyes were filled with urgency. He tried to rise but fell back.
“Rest easy,” Halt told him, but Daniel raised his head wearily and leaned toward him.
“My wife . . . ,” he managed to gasp. “My wife and the baby. Promise me you’ll . . .” He coughed and blood rolled down his chin.
“I’ll look out for them,” Halt told him. “But don’t worry. You’ll be fine. You’ll see them soon.”
Daniel nodded and let his head fall back. He took a long, shuddering breath. Then he seemed to relax, and his breathing became easier, as if Halt’s promise had lifted an enormous burden from his mind.
Halt heard voices then, and footsteps nearby. Then gentle hands were rolling him over and he found himself looking up at the concerned faces of a pair of medical orderlies who were setting down a litter beside him. He gestured weakly toward Daniel.
“I’m all right,” he said. “Take the sergeant first.”
The nearest orderly glanced quickly at Daniel, and shook his head.
“Nothing we can do for him,” he said. “He’s dead.”
4
HALT WOKE.
For a few seconds, he wondered where he was. He was lying on his back, staring at the canvas roof of a large pavilion. He could hear people moving quietly
nearby, speaking in lowered voices. Somewhere, farther away, a man was moaning. He tried to turn his head but a sudden flash of agony greeted the movement and he grunted in pain.
He raised his hand to his forehead and felt a thick bandage there. Then the memory began to come back to him.
The battle with the Wargals. He remembered that. Remembered the club that had caught him on the side of the head. That must be the cause of the flaring headache he now felt. And he remembered a sergeant. What was his name? David? No! Daniel. Daniel had saved his life.
Then he was overcome with sadness as he remembered the words of the litter bearer. Daniel was dead.
How long had he been here? He remembered that as the medical orderlies had lifted him onto the litter, he had lost consciousness. It seemed that it had happened only minutes ago. He tried to rise and the headache speared him behind the eyes again. Once more, he grunted in pain, and this time a face came into his field of vision, looking down at him.
“You’re awake,” the orderly said, and smiled encouragingly at him. He reached down and laid a palm on Halt’s forehead, testing for fever. Seemingly satisfied that there was none, he touched the bandage lightly, making sure it was still tight.
“How . . . long . . .” Halt’s voice was slurred and his throat was thick and dry. The orderly held a cup of cool water to his lips, raised his head carefully and allowed him to drink. The water felt wonderful. He gulped at it and choked, coughing so that water bubbled out of his mouth. The action of coughing set his head aching again and he closed his eyes in pain.
“Still feeling it, I see?” the orderly said. “Well, the healers said there’s no serious damage. You just need a few more days’ rest to let the headache settle down.”
“How long . . . have I been here?”
The orderly pursed his lips. “Let’s see. They brought you in the evening before yesterday, so I’d say about thirty-six hours.”
Thirty-six hours! He’d lain here asleep for a day and a half! A sudden chill of fear struck through him.