The Storm's Own Son (Book 1) (21 page)

"Now RIDE, men!"
shouted Talaos. With that, he turned in the saddle and hurled the javelin into the face of the closest enemy horseman.

Firio, still standing backwards, dodged a javelin,
and then threw another of his knives. Epos, Kyrax, and Halmir had their shields strapped to their backs, and those shields had arrows in them. Imvan, experimentally, tried twisting around in his saddle to fire an arrow, but it went wide and he nearly lost his balance. With an expression of intense focus, he centered his body, turned, and tried again. The shot took an enemy through the shoulder.

On and on they rode. Eight men pursued by more than ninety.
South across the plain they rode, towards the line of hills. At the pass through those hills, six hundred men fought against fewer than two hundred. The ditch was full of dead men and horses, and others were impaled on the sharp stakes above. Many more were strewn about where the flaming logs had crushed and burned them on the way down the slope.

That slope, and line of hills
, was getting closer now. Horses, both those of the Madmen and their pursuers, were getting tired. Still, javelins and arrows came on. A horse neighed in fear as an arrow grazed its flank. Talaos knew it was a matter of time before one struck true and he lost a man, or with the same result, the horse underneath that man.

From the main body
of enemy cavalry on the slope, a messenger came riding fast, angling to intercept the group in pursuit of the Madmen and staying well away from the latter. He shouted, and gained the attention of the junior officers leading the pursuers. He rode alongside them and there was a short, sharp exchange. Then, the pursuing cavalry wheeled away, angling southeast toward the main army.

Behind, on the open plain were only corpses, wounded, riderless horses and a few scouts returning from farther afield.

"Lad, you can sit down now..." said Larogwan to Firio.

"I kind of like it
," replied the latter, still balancing on the saddlebags.

Talaos and his men rode on
under the stars, toward the welcoming hills.

~

They clambered up the moonlit hillside and reached the line of the trees. Two dead enemy scouts marked their trail behind them.  Talaos knew there must be more on the slopes further west, seeking a route that cavalry could thread across the line of hills. From their position around the hill, they had no direct view of the pass, but the sounds of battle had died down.

Vulkas, visibly happy to be off a horse, walked with a loping stride and his war mattock over his shoulder. The rest discussed the situation at the
pass in low voices.

"
Got quiet. Like the gits might have had enough," growled Kyrax.

Epos, without turning, answered in his deep, flat voice, "Most of them
will be dismounting for an attack on foot, using their long spears as pikes. The remainder will stay mounted, in reserve for either a breach in the shield wall, or a route through the hills and around our defenses."

"How do you know
all that?" asked Firio's awed voice, though he himself was unseen in the wooded shadows.

"
The terrain and situation are much like at Caunea, six years ago," replied Epos.

"Now that's more words than you've said in three days," added Larogwan.

Epos did not reply.

Talaos raised a hand, and the others
grew quiet.  Up ahead and above was the hilltop. Adriko would have some men up there, and if they had any traps for the enemy, Talaos didn't want to find them the hard way. 

"Imvan, Firio, take point and watch for sentries. We don't want to get ambushed by our own men."

Without a word, the Hillman and the man of the streets did so. After a little while, Firio's voice whispered ahead, invisible in the darkness.

"How're you doing, Anwyn?"

There was a startled motion, and a voice with an accent of the Seven Realms answered.

"Firio! Where are you lad? We thought you were all dead!"

"I don't think we are. Not yet anyway."

"Now that is good news. Want me to take you to Adriko?"

"Nah. Just let him know we're here. We're going around to say hello to the enemy."

~

Talaos crouched low in the shadows of the lowest trees with the Madmen behind him. The slope here was steep, but further around and down it leveled off to merge with the gentle slope of the pass. Before him was the scene of battle, lit here and there by torches.

True to Epos'
assessment, the enemy had massed ranks of men on foot, shields up and long spears raised. They were close packed, thirty files across and fifteen ranks deep.  Among them were some ready with javelins, at the back were archers. Behind that was a chaotic area, where soldiers cleared the corpses of men and horses, fallen weapons and gear, and the remains of fire logs, then piled them out of the way. Other soldiers led wounded men and riderless horses back out of the battlefield. At the rear was another body of perhaps two hundred, still mounted and ready for the right time.

In front of the enemy was a wide,
blood-strewn area. Corpses and hastily strewn earth now filled the trench, and little remained of the palisade atop the earthen rampart. The spearmen looked to have taken heavy casualties, but not anything like as many as Talaos had expected. At least eighty men still stood firm, in good order.  Many had bandaged wounds. Lurios stood on the rampart with a bloody bandage around his forehead, watching the enemy.

Days earlier, Talaos had considered the
trim, aristocratic, almost vain captain a sort of parade ground officer, and the Aledri men an afterthought to their expedition. He saw how wrong he had been.

On the eastern hillside, opposite from them
and to the enemy's left, was Adriko, sitting thoughtfully on a rock. He had bandages on his forearm and his left leg. Irregular archers stood in a group around him, as well as Drevan and a few dismounted cavalrymen.

Adriko's little army
had held. But the enemy was now better organized for the sort of fight they faced, and despite their losses, they still had nearly five hundred men on foot ready to advance with what were effectively massed pikes.

Talaos looked down at his own wounded body.
He was covered in dried blood, but the bleeding itself had stopped and healing had started. While it wasn't actually fast enough to see in progress, it was so fast as to be unnatural... or would be, if it weren't so natural to him. Still, he could feel the cumulative toll of it all, and black weariness was creeping upon him.

But he had given his word, and would see this through.

Down below, the man who seemed the most senior of the surviving enemy officers, in blood-stained green crest and cloak, raised a tall spear with small pennants in the colors of many towns, and began to shout orders. Two men nearby blew horns. The enemy began to advance in close ranks. Those toward the front lowered their long spears.

The enemy troops in their close formation, filling the pass from one side to the other with their long spears, were well organized to overwhelm the vastly outnumbered defenders. They were also, thought Talaos, not in a position to maneuver easily.

"Here's our cue, men," said Talaos in a low voice.

The enemy troops with javelins hurled them into the Aledri spearmen, then raised their own long spears.  From the back of the enemy column, arrows fired at targets
on the rampart. Here and there Aledri men fell, were carried back, and their places taken by others. The enemy closed, spears low, crossed the treacherous corpse-ground of the ditch, and ascended the rampart. Their massed spears clashed with those upon the rampart, and men began to die.

Without
warning, six men charged down the hillside on the enemy's right. Vulkas roared like some colossal beast. Kyrax, Larogwan, Halmir, and Epos ran in great loping steps behind him. Behind them, quietly and furtively, a small figure darted downhill among the shadows. Still on the hillside, Imvan found a large stone that gave some cover, and set up shop with his bow and several full quivers.

To the left of the
charging Madmen, farthest from the rampart where the slope was steepest, Talaos made a great soaring leap. High through the air he came, an apparition in blood soaked black with his tattered black cloak spread around him like a raven's wings. His swords glittered in the moonlight beneath flickering blue eyes.

Men turned up to see him with fear in their own eyes.

Vulkas reached the closest, rightmost file of enemy soldiers, at the center ranks crossing the ditch. He hurtled into them like a rampaging bull, smashing left and right with his war mattock, and treading corpses under his feet. The head of one enemy disappeared in a red mist, another went flying back through the air, crashing with havoc among the enemy further away.

In Vulkas'
wake, and on his right, Epos coolly cut down a startled man in the front ranks of the enemy. To the right of Epos, Kyrax scowled and stabbed through the side of an enemy's neck, then stepped low inside the shield of another to gut the man. On the left was Larogwan, who brought an axe crashing through the helm of an enemy as the man hurriedly tried to turn his long spear. Farthest left, to the enemy rear, Halmir leapt and turned, dealing death around him.

T
he enemy files on the right of their formation, nearest to the sudden onslaught, began to turn in confusion, long spears turning unevenly amid the press. 

Then the apparition landed, close behind them with whirling blades. Talaos spun and lunged, short blade and long working in perfect coordination to bring death to the
soldiers in the last rank of the enemy formation.  Pressed close together under their long spears, they turned with difficulty. Like death made manifest, he scythed under his tattered shroud of a cloak, and men fell before the reaping.

The entire right flank of the enemy army began to dissolve in confusion and spilling blood. The commander shouted orders, and from the left of the army, the two rearmost ranks detached.  Some of them formed up in a new
formation of two compact ranks behind, and perpendicular to, the main formation. They charged with lowered spears.   Others, the archers, dropped their spears and readied bows for new targets.

On the enemy's right,
havoc unfolded. Vulkas cleared a mighty path, and the four at his side widened it. Talaos wreaked whirling slaughter. The enemy's front ranks, at the rampart and caught between the Aledri men and the Madmen, withered and died. Behind the front wave of destruction, a small, furtive, seemingly insignificant figure, brought sudden death to enemy survivors still fighting, and swift passage to those dying.

The enemy commander shouted another order
. Horns blew.

The
reserve of cavalry, nearly two hundred strong, advanced up the hillside.

The small
detached formation of enemy spearmen charged as arrows flew over their heads and at the Madmen. Arrows lodged in Larogwan's shield. One struck Kyrax in the thigh at a shallow angle, and he spewed curses as he ripped it out. From the hillside high above on the right, answering arrows came, and enemy archers began to fall, one by one.

Talaos, moving and slaying, took in the scene.

With the disruption unleashed by the Madmen, the main enemy body lost momentum. The Aledri men and the irregulars were holding, with hard bloodstained fighting, at the rampart. The right side of the enemy formation was roiling in battle as the Madmen fought the onrushing enemy spearmen.

But now the cavalry was advancing. They were coming up the hill at a trot, in an unbroken formation of two hundred. Soon, very soon, they would close, and then his men would be fighting on two sides,
or three. Even they would likely fall.

And his men, the Madmen, even if they held, must grow weary sooner or later.

As would he.

Even now it was coming, like a shadow
in his soul.

A
nd the depleted men on the rampart would face the full force of the enemy alone. The men at the rampart, the men who had stood fast as a vast eagle of fire screamed at them from above, would die.

Then it would be over.

Now though, he had something to do.

Up the moonlit slope rode two hundred cavalry with lowered spears.

Down the slope to meet them went one man

One man
in tattered black, covered from head to foot in blood, with his black cloak flapping in shreds in the wind.

The enemy horsemen looked at him in surprise. He looked at them with the intent gaze of a hunting wolf.

The front ranks spurred their horses to run him down.

He sprinted, he leapt, with the dropping slope he seemed to take wing like a raven in the moonlight. He
spun in mid air as he descended. Blades flashed, scything, and two horsemen died with bodies falling one way, and their heads another.

In their midst, he ducked low, circling, and with grim necessity cut men's horses from under them. Beasts and men toppled, spreading havoc in the close ranks. All around, the cavalry were thrown into confusion. Talaos
rose from the ruin he'd made, leapt to the back of a fallen horse, and from there to the back of a living one with a rider. He sliced the man from shoulder to waist, then flew to another horse and another foe to slay.