The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell) (76 page)

The closest ones went first, shimmering and then dissolving into nothing. Behind them, other creatures which had been feasting on their victims flesh raised their heads, bloody chunks of meat hanging from their jaws, as if sensing their approaching doom. They too disintegrated and behind them the horned warriors who had caused so much mayhem with their fire-trailing spears. On the far side of the battlefield the grey robes started screaming, the older ones collapsing, too weak to stand, as they aged ten summers in a heartbeat and the younger ones crying out as their magic was ripped from them.

Beyond the battle line where the mighty army, ten thousand strong gathered, only those with wands moved, franticly trying to build a protective wall against the invisible hand which was sweeping towards them. For a dozen heartbeats the construct held and then it was swept away as if it had never been.

Jonderill watched helplessly as the Goddess’s spell spread in a gigantic fan, swallowing magic and leaching the vibrant colour from the land, turning it to a dullness that had never been there before. He watched as the last vapours of the army blew away on the wind and held his breath as the spell reached the pillars. If anything could stop the spell it would be the Pillars of the Allkinds, built to protect the Goddess’s sacred temple. It was his only hope that what he’d set free out of desperation would be stopped.

From where he stood, he thought he could see tendrils of vapour rising upwards and twisting around the pillars looking so insubstantial that it must surely fail, but his hopes that the spell would be stopped were turned to ash as the pillars collapsed into rubble and dust. The pillar at the rear was the last to fall, the one that held the power to summon the Allkinds and to make things as they once were. It should have been him who called upon its power, he would have used it for good, but the Goddess had lied to Sadrin and him both.

For some reason he didn’t understand she wanted magic to be gone from this land and had used the two of them for her own ends. But the Goddess had underestimated him. He still had his power, protected by the torc, and as long as he had life he would foil the Goddess’s plan, whatever it was. As he reached up to touch the torc laughter echoed through his mind, no longer soft but harsh, mocking and triumphant. He tried to block it with his magic but he was too late; with a loud click the torc fell from his neck and he crumpled to the ground as the magic which sustained him fled.

Borman had been watching too, not believing what had happened to his invincible army. It was bad enough that he’d lost the savage creatures and horned warriors but to lose an entire army of ten thousand before they had even been engaged in the battle was beyond bearing. Such destruction had to be caused by magic and that meant that Jonderill was responsible. He screamed in frustration and glared at Tarraquin. Hadn’t he warned the magician what would happen if he dared to cast a single spell against him?

He wouldn’t kill her now though, that would be too quick. When this was all over he would make them both suffer and all those who had supported them. Angrily he turned his attention back to the battlefield where bodies were strewn around the base of the hill on the opposite side, mangled, half eaten and half dead. Thankfully they were not his men, they were the enemy. Closer to hand, those who held allegiance to him had recovered from the shock of what had happened and were moving again, starting to gather into some sort of fighting order ready to resume the battle.

As he concentrated on what was left of the two armies, a sudden smile crossed his face; his magical army might have disappeared, but that didn’t mean his enemies had gained the advantage. On the contrary, between them the nightmare creatures and the horned warriors had completely routed the enemy’s front line and centre not to mention decimating them. As for morale he couldn’t imagine what it would be like having just seen your comrades savaged, torn apart and eaten whilst you were running away.

He looked across the valley and barely restrained himself from cheering. His enemy was in total disarray with men slumped all over the hillside in fear, shock and exhaustion and their commanders in a huddle around a prone figure. Now was the time to act. One decisive charge by his reserves, gathering men as they moved forward would do it. He could be across the valley and in amongst the commanders before they knew what had hit them.

He called one of the flag men to him with the intention of sending a message for the Royal Guards to prepare to engage and then had second thoughts. This new-fangled way of sending messages had some merits, but not if it allowed the other side to anticipate what you were about to do. It also took a lot of time for them to wave their little bits of cloth in the air, by which time the advantage would be lost. He thought for a moment about leading the charge himself and taking the enemy completely by surprise, but dismissed that too. If the enemy rallied then he would be at the leading edge of a sledge hammer, which wouldn’t be a good place to be.

No, it would be much better if he were to hold back whilst his reserves charged in and died on the ends of the enemy’s swords, allowing him to arrive just in time for the kill, which would make him a hero and give him all the glory. He didn’t want the opposition to know what he was going to do, so he dismissed the flagmen with a wave and glanced behind at the woman. It was a nonsense dragging her along but the look of distress on her face whilst he dealt with the rebel leaders knowing that her turn would come next would add extra enjoyment to his victory.

Malingar watched as Dozo and Allowyn tended to the magician. He didn’t know much about their kind, but the magician looked dead to him, and even if he wasn’t dead now, he didn’t look like he would last long. The black robe was deathly pale, except for the dribble of blood from the corner of his mouth, and his body was twisted like men he’d seen on a battlefield with their spines cut through.

It was a pity, he’d liked the magician, even if his mood was as black as his robes most of the time. He stood and looked across the valley and then cursed out loud as five troops of foot soldiers advanced down the opposite hillside at a brisk trot. That wasn’t all; Borman’s men on the valley floor were already reforming. Their intention to resume the battle was obvious.

“Allowyn, Dozo, I think you had better see this. We’ve got company.” They stood and took in the scene, estimating the numbers of the advancing army compared to their own scattered men who were only just becoming aware of the danger and were beginning to stir. “He’s brought Tarraquin with him. What in hellden’s name does he think he is doing bringing a woman onto a battlefield?”

Dozo gave him a hard look. His own wife was down there somewhere and he didn’t know if she was dead or alive. At least Malingar had the decency to look embarrassed by his callus comment. “Can we counterattack?”

Allowyn shook his head. “There are too many of them. They must outnumber us four to one and half their force is fresh whilst ours is still in shock.”

“What about Barrin and his horsemen?”

Allowyn shook his head again. “Gone, either scattered or, if they have any sense, in retreat and getting as far away from here as fast as they can.”

“Perhaps that’s what we should be doing,” muttered Malingar.

“Can’t” put in Dozo. “We would be too slow and in any case there is nowhere to go to. After today, Borman will rule everything.”

“So you intend to just sit here and wait for Borman to come and slaughter you all?” accused Malingar, kicking at a tussock in frustration.

“No,” said Allowyn carefully. “We will form a defensive line and use the advantage of holding the high ground as best as we can. The outcome will still be the same, but we will take many more of them with us to hellden’s halls.”

Malingar glanced back at the half dozen horses tied up behind them and decided that standing in a line and dying was madness. “You may want to be a hero but I would rather live to fight another day. I’m leaving and I will take five others with me to safety. You can choose who they are.”

Allowyn hesitated. He could have stopped him of course but half a dozen men were not going to make any difference and if there was even the smallest chance to get his master out of here then he had to take it. “Go then, but you take four of your men and Jonderill across Sansun’s back.”

Dozo shook his head. “If you move him now it will kill him for certain.”

He resisted the obvious comment that if Jonderill stayed here he was going to die in any case. “All right, take the men but circle around so the rest don’t see you deserting us.” He turned his back on Malingar. “Come, Dozo, we have a defensive line to form.”

Malingar watched them go before turning back to his men wondering how he was going to pick the five men who were going to live knowing that the rest were going to die. “Tordray, pick four men and come with me, we’re leaving.”

Captain Tordray hesitated. To stay was certain death but to run was cowardice. “I’m staying, sir.”

“Then you are a fool, Tordray.” He turned away, pointed at the front five men and led them to where the horses waited.

Borman couldn’t believe his luck. He had assumed that the moment they realised he was going to attack with his reserves they would scatter in every direction like long-eared hoppers chased by a sly hound pack, and they would have to spend the next moon cycle hunting them down. Instead they had formed a curved line near the top of the rise, three deep with the women and the wounded at the rear. It was a classic tactical formation intended to pull the enemy into the centre and trap them but he didn’t care, there were far too few of them to make it work.

What did concern him was the protector standing at the centre of the line. He changed his mind about committing the Royal Guard and ordered them forward so that they were directly in front of him as his horse began to climb the steep incline. He eased back on the reins slightly and let those who were more eager for battle overtake him. There would be plenty of time for him to play the hero when the defensive line had crumbled and the protector was dead.

Allowyn stood at the centre of the line, two throwing knives already in his hand. He reckoned he would have time to use four of them before he had to draw his swords. To his right stood Dozo, looking calmer now that he’d found his wife. She and Ennett stood behind him in the second line armed only with long knives. He would have liked to have had Malingar on his other side but he had slipped away with his five chosen men.

Instead he had Captain Tordray who had surprisingly refused Malingar’s offer of escape. He was a capable fighter who had taken heed of the warning to stay outside of his sword reach and now stood nervously three paces away. Two steps behind him Jonderill lay in the grass unmoving with Jarrul by his side. The man had wanted the distance to be wider but it was sufficient, a protector’s creed would only allow him to retreat one pace and if he needed to retreat further than that, then all would be lost anyway.

He looked along the ragged line of freedom fighters and was grimly pleased with what he saw. Each man in the front line had found themselves a pike or a spear and had braced the butt in the ground as he had shown them. The labouring horses which now led the charge would come on them at chest height and with any luck would go no further. Borman’s second line would bear the brunt of the defenders steel but after that his superior numbers would count and it would all be over in half a candle length. He said a quick prayer to the Goddess to be gentle with his soul and threw both of his knives together, each finding its mark as the first of the mounted troops came within range.

Borman cursed as the front of the battle line crumpled on the pikes and spears of the rebels. They had been hard to spot from the downhill side but clearly some of his men had seen them at the last moment as they had tried to turn their horses away. It would have been better for everyone if they had impaled themselves on the spikes. However the fools had paid for their cowardice as the second line ploughed into them trampling horse and rider under foot in their eagerness to get to the peasants.

The King cursed again as the enemy line not only held their ground but pushed his troops back into the third line which had now come to a standstill. He should have ordered the recall whilst they sorted themselves out, reformed and charged again, but it was unlikely to be heard above the screams of pain-maddened horses, the shouting of men and the clash of weapons. The only place that wasn’t chaotic was the centre of the line where men were falling in a neat pile to the protector’s swords. He’d definitely made the right decision to let others go before him.

Dozo gritted his teeth against the ache in his sword arm where he’d parried an overhead blow and dragged his knife from the body of the soldier who had died with a look of surprise on his face. Blood ran down his arm from a gash on his shoulder making the blade’s hilt slick and difficult to grip. He had to hang on though, the man next to him had fallen in the first charge and now Stanner stood in his place. There was blood on her clothes and he prayed to the Goddess that it wasn’t hers. He took a half step forward to give her more protection and took a quick glance along the line.

It was a mistake that almost cost him his life as an enemy’s blade lunged for his exposed side. Allowyn’s blade licked forward and down removing the soldier’s sword arm at the elbow. The soldier’s screams drowned out Allowyn’s grunt of pain as the enemy he’d been fighting on the other side anticipated the move and plunged a sword through a gap in the protector’s armour just above his thigh and then died for his trouble. Dozo shot the protector a swift look of gratitude, but Allowyn was already engaged elsewhere.

Allowyn could feel blood running down his thigh, warm and sticky. It had been a stupid thing to do, a basic tactical error which would have earned him a whipping if he’d been a trainee protector. His job was to protect his master, not his friends, but he couldn’t just let Dozo die, not when he could protect him too. The problem was that the wound had left him weaker on one side so he had to shorten his strokes allowing the enemy to get closer and there were so many of them. Now the initial charge had been broken, the middle ranks of foot soldiers were more cautious and had closed together in a tight formation coming at their line like a battering ram with deadly spikes.