“Yes … Rally …” Abruptly, Saubon’s eyes shone, as though some brighter fire now moved him. “The Whore would be kind!” the Prince cried. “That’s what he said!”
Gotian could only stare, bewildered.
Coithus Saubon, a Prince of Galeoth, the seventh son of old evil Eryeat, hollered for his horse.
Great tides of Fanim lancers, countless thousands of them, crashed into the Inrithi line—and were stopped dead. Galeoth and Tydonni pikemen gutted their horses. Tattooed Nangaels from Ce Tydonn’s northern marches cudgelled the fallen in the mud. Agmundrmen punched arrows through shield and corselet with their deadly yew bows. Auglishmen from the deep forests of Thunyerus broke ranks when the Fanim fled, hurling hatchets that buzzed like dragonflies.
At other points along the ravine, leather-armoured cohorts of Fanim swept parallel to the Inrithi ranks, loosing arrows and taunts, tossing the heads of those caste-nobles who’d fallen in the first charge. The Northmen would hunch beneath their kite shields, weather the barrage, and then, to the dismay of the heathen, throw those self-same heads back at them.
Soon the Fanim began flinching from sections of the Inrithi line—from the stouthearted Gesindalmen and Kurigalders of Galeoth, from the grim Numainerish and long-bearded Plaidolmen of Ce Tydonn—but they found none so fearsome as the flaxen-haired Thunyeri, whose great shields seemed walls of stone, and whose two-handed axes and broadswords could split iron-armoured men to the heart. Horseless, the giant Yalgrota Sranchammer stood before them, roaring curses and waving his axe wildly in the air. When the Kianene indulged him, he and his clansmen hacked them into bloody kindling.
Yet again and again, the Grandees of Gedea and Shigek spilled across the ravine and charged headlong into the iron men, besetting the Galeoth, then the Tydonni, searching for one ill-forged link. They need only break the Inrithi once, and this knowledge drove them to acts of fanatic desperation. Men with shattered scimitars, with spouting wounds, even men with their bowels hanging about their knees, surged forward, threw themselves at the Norsirai. But each time they became mired in melee, mud, and carnage before the howls of their lords sent them galloping for the safety of the open plain. In their wake the Men of the Tusk stumbled to their knees, crying out in bitter relief.
To the northeast, where the common line trailed into the salt marshes, the Padirajah’s son, Crown Prince Fanayal, led the Coyauri, his father’s elite heavy cavalry, against the Cuärwishmen of Ce Tydonn, who had crowded into the ranks of their neighbours to the west and were caught scrambling back to their positions. For several moments, all was chaos, and dozens of Cuärwishmen could be seen fleeing into the marshes. Broadswords and scimitars flashed in the sunlight. Suddenly bands of shimmering Coyauri began spilling behind the line, though the Fanayal’s White Horse standard remained stalled near the ravine. Gothyelk’s two younger sons charged the Coyauri with what horse that remained to them, and the Fanim, without the open ground their tactics favoured, were driven back with atrocious losses.
Heartened by this success, Prince Saubon of Galeoth mustered those knights still mounted, and the Inrithi began, with more and more confidence, answering Fanim assaults with counter-charges. They would crash into the seemingly amorphous masses, the Fanim would melt, then they would race to evade the darting masses trying to envelop their flanks. Breathless, they would tumble back into the common line, lances broken, swords notched, ranks thinned. Saubon himself lost three horses. Earl Othrain of Numaineiri was carried back by his household, mortally wounded. He soon joined his dead son.
The sun climbed high, and scoured the Battleplain with heat.
The Earls and Thanes of the Middle-North cursed and marvelled at the fluid tactics of the Kianene. They gazed with envy at their magnificent, glossy-coated horses, which the heathen riders seemed to guide with thought alone. They no longer scoffed that the heathen Grandees were proficient with the bow. Many shields were quilled with arrows. Broken shafts jutted from the hauberks of many men. In the Inrithi camp, thousands sprawled dead or wounded because of the heathen’s archery.
The Fanim withdrew and reformed, and the Men of the Tusk raised a ragged cheer. Many infantrymen, suffocated by the heat, dashed into the corpse-strewn ravine and doused their heads with bloody and fouled water. Many others fell to their knees and shook, wracked by silent sobs. Body-slaves, priests, wives, and harlots walked among the men, salving wounds, offering water or beer to the common soldiers and wine to the caste-nobles. Small hymns were raised among pockets of exhausted warriors. Officers bawled commands, enlisting hundreds to hammer broken pikes, spears, even shards of wood to spike the incline before their lines.
Word arrived that the heathen had sent divisions of horsemen north into the hills in a bid to outflank the Inrithi position, where, anticipated by Prince Saubon, they had been utterly undone by the tactics and valour of Earl Athjeäri and his Gaenrish knights. More cheers swept through the common line, and for a short time, they waxed louder than the incessant thunder of Fanim drums.
But their jubilation was short-lived. Massed on the plains before them, the heathen had assembled beneath their triangular banners in long, staggered lines. The drums fell silent. For a moment, the Men of the Tusk could hear wind across the grasses, even bees as they meandered over the dead that choked the ravine. As they watched, a small party of horsemen trotted imperiously before the ranks of motionless Fanim, bearing the Black Jackal device of Skauras, the Kianene Sapatishah-Governor of Shigek. They heard a faint harangue, answered by resounding shouts in an unknown tongue.
Prince Saubon could be heard bellowing, offering fifty gold talents to the archer who could kill, and ten to the one who could wound, the Sapatishah. After testing the wind, individual Agmundrmen raised their yew bows to the sun and began taking potshots. Most of the missiles fell far short, but some few made the distance. The distant horsemen affected not to notice, until abruptly one began swatting at the back of his neck, then toppled to the turf.
The Men of the Tusk roared with jeering laughter. As one, they pounded their shields, hooting and yelling. The Sapatishah’s entourage scattered, leaving one figure: a nobleman on a magnificent white caparisoned in black and gold, obviously unafraid, apparently unmoved by the derision booming across the plain. And to a man, the Inrithi realized they looked upon the great Skauras ab Nalajan, whom the Nansur called Sutis Sutadra, the Southern Jackal.
Arrows fletched in faraway Galeoth pocked the turf about him, but he didn’t move. More and more shafts feathered the ground as Agmundrmen began finding the drift and distance. Facing the Inrithi, the remote Sapatishah pulled a knife from his crimson girdle—and began paring his nails.
Now the Fanim began to laugh and roar as well, beating their round shields with sun-flashing scimitars. The very earth seemed to shiver, so ferocious was the din. Two races, two faiths, willing hate and murder across the littered Battleplain.
Then Skauras raised a hand, and the drums resumed their implacable throbbing. The Fanim began advancing along the entirety of their line. The Men of the Tusk fell silent, butted their pikes and squared their shields with those of their neighbours. It was beginning again.
Trailing clouds of dust, the Kianene ponderously gathered speed. As though counting drumbeats, the forward ranks lowered their lances in unison, urged their horses to gallop. With a piercing cry, they threw themselves at the Inrithi, while mounted archers swept to either side, showering the Northmen with arrows. They came crashing in successive waves, deeper and more numerous than in the morning. Entire companies were sacrificed for mere lengths of earth. Here and there, against the Üsgalders of Galeoth, against the battered Cuärwishmen, the Nangaels and Warnutes of Ce Tydonn, the Kianene gained the crest of the ravine, pressed the iron men back. Pikes snapped, gouged faces, hooked harnesses. Curved scimitars cracked helms, snapped collarbones through iron mail. Maddened horses crashed through rank and shield. And just when the heathen’s numbers and momentum seemed to fail, more waves resolved from the dust, leaping
through the ravine, pounding over the dead, lancing into the staggered footmen. There was no time for tactics, no time for prayer, only the desperate scramble to kill and live.
At several points, the common line wavered, broke …
Then, as though stepping out of the blinding sun, the Cishaurim revealed themselves.
Saubon even beat at several of the fleeing Üsgalders with the flat of his sword, but it was no use. Mad with panic, they scrambled from his warhorse’s snorting path—and from the gold-armoured horsemen running them down.
“The God!” Saubon roared as he barrelled into the pursuing Coyauri. “The God wills it!” His black crashed against the mount of the heathen before him. The smaller charger stumbled, and Saubon punched his swordpoint clear through its astonished rider’s neck. He wheeled and parried a heavy blow from a Kianene garbed in flowing crimson. His black stumbled sideways and screamed, throwing him thigh to thigh with the man—though Saubon towered higher. Saubon smashed down with his pommel and the man tumbled backward from his saddle, his face bloody ruin. From somewhere, a blade nicked Saubon’s helm. He slashed the now riderless charger’s hindquarters and it went dancing into the heathen dogs before him, then he swept his broadsword in a great backward arc, shearing off the jaw of his assailant’s mount. The horse reared; its rider went down. Saubon reined his black to the left and trampled the shrieking blasphemer.
“The God!” he cried, hacking at another man, cracking the wood of his shield.
“Wills!” His second blow shattered the warding arm beneath.
“It!” The third cracked his silvered helm, halved his dark face.
The Coyauri beyond the slumping man hesitated. Those behind Saubon, however, did not. A lance scraped along his back, snagged his hauberk, almost throwing him from his saddle. Standing in his stirrups, he hacked again, snapping the lance. When his opponent reached back for his curved blade, Saubon plunged his sword into the joints of the man’s harness. Another down. The heathen milled around him, bewildered.
“Craven,” Saubon spat, and spurred into them with a crazed laugh. They recoiled in terror—that was the death of two more of them. But Saubon’s black inexplicably reared and stumbled … Another fucking horse! He slammed hard against the turf. Muddy thought—confusion. A stamping forest of legs and hooves. Inert bodies. Bruised weeds. Up … up … must get up! He kicked at his thrashing mount. A great, buoyant shadow loomed above. Iron-shod hooves chopped the turf about his head. He jammed his sword upward, felt the point skid along the horse’s sternum, then plunge into soft brown belly. Flash of sunlight. Then he was clear, stumbling to his feet. But something shattered across his helm, knocking him back to his knees. Another concussion sent him face first into the ground.
By the God, his fury felt so empty, so frail against the earth! He reached out with his bare left hand and grabbed another hand—cold, heavily callused, leathery fingers and glass nails. A dead hand. He looked up across the matted grasses and stared at the dead man’s face. An Inrithi. The features were flattened against the ground and partly sheathed in blood. The man had lost his helm, and sandy-blond hair jutted from his mail hood. The coif had fallen aside, pressed against his bottom lip. He seemed so heavy, so stationary—like more ground …
A nightmarish moment of recognition, too surreal to be terrifying.
It was his face! His own hand he held!
He tried to scream.
Nothing.
But there was the thunder of heavier hooves, shouts in familiar tongues. Saubon let slip the cold fingers, struggled to his hands and knees. Concerned voices. From nowhere it seemed, arms were hoisting him to his feet. He stared numbly at the bare turf, at the site where a moment before his corpse had been …
This ground … This ground is cursed!
“Here, take my arm,” the voice was fatherly, as though to a son who’d just learned a hard lesson. “You’re saved, my Prince.” It was Kussalt.
Saved?
“Are you whole?”
Winded, Saubon spat blood and gasped, “Bruised only …”
Mere yards away, Shrial Knights and Coyauri jostled and hacked at one another. Swords rang, danced flashing across sun and sky. So beautiful. So impossibly remote, like a spectacle woven in cloth …
Saubon turned wordlessly to his groom. The old warrior looked haggard, beaten.
“You stemmed the breach,” Kussalt said, his eyes strange with wonder, perhaps even pride.
Saubon blinked at the blood trickling into his left eye. An inexplicable cruelty overcame him. “You’re old and slow … Give me your horse!”
Kussalt’s look soured. Old lips tightened.
“This is no place to be thin-skinned, you old fool. Now give me your fucking horse!”
Kussalt jerked, as though something had popped within him, then slumped forward, staggering Saubon with his weight.
He fell backward with his groom, crashed on his rump.
“Kussalt!”
He dragged the man onto his thighs. An arrow shaft jutted from the small of Kussalt’s back.
The groom gurgled, coughed dark, old-man’s blood. His rolling eyes found Saubon’s, and the old warrior laughed, coughed more blood. Saubon’s skin pimpled with dread. How many times had he heard the man laugh? Three or four, over the course of his entire lifetime?
No-no-no-no …
“Kussalt!”
“I would have you know …” the old man wheezed, “how much I hated you …”
A convulsion, then he spat snotty blood. A long gasp, then he went utterly still.
Like more earth.
Saubon looked around the strange pocket of calm that held them. Everywhere, through the trampled grasses, dead eyes watched. And he understood.
Cursed.
The Coyauri had reeled away, fleeing through the guttered ravine. But instead of cheering, men screamed. Somewhere, lights flashed, so bright they threw shadows in the midday sun.
He never hated me …
How could he? Kussalt was the only one who …
Funny joke. Ha-ha, you old fool …
Someone was standing over him, shouting.
So tired. Had he ever been so tired?
“Cishaurim!” someone was screaming. “Cishaurim!”
Ah, the lights …
A slapping blow, torn links scoring his cheek. Where had his helm gone?
“Saubon! Saubon!” Incheiri Gotian was screaming. “The Cishaurim!”
Saubon pulled his fingers from his cheek. Saw blood.
Fucking ingrate. Fucking shit-skinned pick.
Make sure they’re punished! Punish them! Punish!
Fucking picks.
“Charge them,” the Galeoth Prince said mildly. He hugged his dead groom tight against his thighs and stomach. What a joker.
“You must charge the Cishaurim.”
They walked to elude the companies of crossbowmen they knew the Inrithi kept behind their lines, armed with the Tears of God. Not one among their number could be risked, not with the Scarlet Spires girding for war—not for any reason. They were Cishaurim, Indara’s Waterbearers, and their breath was more precious than the breath of thousands. They were oases among men.
Drawing their palms over grass, goldenrod, and white alyssum, they walked toward the common line, fourteen of them, their yellow silk cassocks whipped by wind and fiery convections, the five snakes about each of their throats outstretched, like the spokes of a candelabra, searching every direction. The desperate Northmen fired volley after volley of arrows, but the shafts burst into puffs of flame. The Cishaurim continued walking, sweeping their gouged eyes along the bristling Inrithi lines. Wherever they turned, blue-blinding light exploded among the Men of the Tusk, blistering skin, welding iron to flesh, charring hearts …
Many Northmen held their position, dropping prone beneath their shields as they’d been taught. But many others were already fleeing—Üsgalders, Agmundrmen, and Gaenrish, Numaineirish and Plaidolmen—senseless to the rallying cries
of their officers and lords. The Inrithi centre floundered, began to evaporate. Battle had become massacre.
Amid the tumult, Crown Prince Fanayal and his Coyauri fled the ravine, the Shrial Knights pursuing them through billowing dust and smoke—or so it seemed to all who watched. At first, the Fanim could scarce credit their eyes. Many cried out, not in fear or dismay, but in wonder at the deranged ferocity of the idolaters. When Fanayal wheeled away, Incheiri Gotian, some four thousand Shrial Knights massed behind him, continued galloping forward, crying—weeping—“The God wills it!”
They scattered across the Battleplain, unbloodied save for the morning’s first disastrous charge, hurtling through the grasses, crouched low out of terror, crying out their fury, their defiance. They charged the fourteen Cishaurim, drove their mounts into the hellish lights that unspooled from their brows. And they died burning, like moths assailing coals in a fire’s heart.
Filaments of blue incandescence, fanning out, glittering with unearthly beauty, burning limbs to cinders, bursting torsos, immolating men in their saddles. Amid the shrieks and wails, the rumble of hooves, the thunder of men howling “The God wills it!” Gotian was pitched breakneck from the charred remnants of his horse. Biaxi Scoulas, his leg burnt to a stump, toppled and was trampled to pulp by those pounding after him. The knight immediately before Cutias Sarcellus exploded, and sent a knife whistling through his windpipe. The First Knight-Commander collapsed, slapped face first onto the ground. Death came swirling down.
Brains boiled in skulls. Teeth snapped. Hundreds fell in the first thirty seconds. Hundreds more in the second. Scorching light materialized everywhere, like the cracks that dizzy glass. And still the Shrial Knights whipped their horses forward, leaping the smouldering ruin of their brothers, racing one another to their doom, thousands of them, howling, howling. The scrub and grasses ignited. Oily smoke bloomed skyward, drawn toward the Cishaurim by the wind.
Then a lone rider, a young adept, swept up to one of the sorcerer-priests—and took his head. When the nearest turned his sockets to regard him, only the boy’s horse erupted in flame. The young knight tumbled and continued running, his cries shrill, his dead father’s Chorae bound to the palm of his hand.