them! Thousands even! This was no raiding party. This was an army! A vast army of horsemen!
Scarcely realizing what she was doing, she reached up and seized the rider's bridle. He reined his horse to a halt and stared down at her angrily.
Vaguely, Magret had thought that she might find words that would somehow turn this man around, but now, against such numbers, she knew that nothing but another army could prevail. An ancient instinct took command. She might not survive this encounter, but …
'Run, Faren!’ she shouted at the top of her voice. ‘Run! Warn the village! Run…'
Her cry stopped abruptly as Ivaroth's spear ran her through. It was a swift and skilful thrust but it was also one that nearly cost him his life. Magret's eyes rolled back in shock and terrible realization, then her lips curled into a savage snarl and the shock vanished, displaced by hatred and rage. Gripping the shaft of the impaling spear, she swung her full weight on to it suddenly, almost unhorsing Ivaroth, then she twisted round and, producing a long knife from somewhere within her copious skirts, she lunged at his thigh as he struggled to keep his seat.
It was a murderous and powerful blow that would have cut Ivaroth to the bone and probably emptied his life blood in moments, but the reflexes, born of a lifetime spent fighting and killing from the saddle, saved him as they released his grip on the spear, and pushed its shaft upwards and sideways. The action destroyed Magret's swinging balance and she staggered backwards for several paces before toppling over with a cry of pain.
As she hit the ground the knife bounced from her hand. Ivaroth watched her struggling to recover it for a moment. A timely reminder, he thought, as he remembered advice given to him by men who had raided into Bethlarii territory before. ‘Take care with their women, Mareth Hai, they're usually armed, and nearly as dangerous as the men.'
He edged his horse forward and leaned forward to retrieve his spear.
Seeing her death approaching, Magret made a desperate, scrabbling effort and at last reached her knife. ‘Run, Faren! The village…’ she managed to shout as she seized it, but even as her grip tightened about its hilt, Ivaroth's expert hand wrenched his spear free with a practiced twist, and both knife and voice slipped from her again. With a soft, almost whimpering moan, she rolled over on to her face and lay still.
Ivaroth glanced at her indifferently and sniffed. He was about to hold up the bloodied spear to his men as a sign of what was to be in this land, when a fearful scream rang out.
It was Faren. He had watched open-mouthed and paralyzed as his mother had been struck down and killed, but now something had released him and he was running across the field shrieking incoherently.
Ivaroth made a swift gesture to his companion, who slowly nodded his head in acknowledgement.
Then there was a soft, but deep rumbling, and small ripples like those across a wind-blown field of corn, ran through the very ground itself towards the fleeing boy. As they reached him, their impact knocked him into the air and he crashed down heavily.
Ivaroth trotted towards him, but the boy did not rise.
Yet he was shrieking more than ever. And wriggling.
Ivaroth frowned and slowed his horse to a walk. When he reached the boy he saw that both of his arms were embedded in the ground up to the elbow. At his back, he heard the blind man breathing; an unholy descant to the boy's frantic screaming.
Ivaroth clenched his teeth. Sport was sport, but the relish the old man took from such deeds disturbed him at a depth within himself that he could not fathom.
Drawing his sword, he finished the terrified boy with a single stroke.
'Your noise is frightening my horse, boy,’ he said as he did the deed, lest it be misconstrued as an act of compassion. But his mouth was dry.
Then his army moved forward again. Freed at last from the narrow constraints of the mountains, they spread out across the wide fields like a river reaching a delta.
As a further demonstration of his insight as Mareth Hai, Ivaroth had led the journey through the final valley personally, allowing none of the scouts to go ahead.
'None will oppose us. This is our destiny,’ he said, in answer to the concern of his advisers. ‘Have I not told you repeatedly that their men will be elsewhere?'
Now, to confirm this prophecy, he sent a few scouts ahead to find the village the woman had spoken of. His confidence infected everyone and the tribes’ entry into this new land was like the return of a successful hunting party rather than the first intrusive steps of an invading army. Besides, had they not completed the greatest journey in the history of all the plains’ people? Nothing now could stand against them.
Over the next few hours the leisurely, walking hooves and wheels of Ivaroth's army fouled the quiet stream resting in its dell and trampled the bodies of Magret and her son beyond all recognition.
It was late morning when a scout returned to Ryllans with the news that a Bethlarii force was leaving the camp.
'Three battalions of infantry and a few dozen riders,’ Ryllans said, echoing the scout's message. The Bethlarii's response made sense: the terrain was unsuitable for large scale cavalry action and three battalions was a substantial enough force to engage almost any opposition in the relatively narrow confines of the valley. The riders would be there perhaps as advance scouts, skirmishers maybe, or, more likely, as messengers, and, judging by the speed at which the force had been mobilized, reinforcements from the camp would not be slow in arriving if needed.
'They must have been preparing to move, after all, to be able to put so many men in the field so quickly,’ Arwain said, speaking to the same thought. ‘We were right to attack when we did.'
Ryllans nodded and glanced up at the watery sun. It was impossible to say how long it would be before Ibris's army arrived. All they could do now was hold until there was a serious risk of their being overrun. There would be no easy decisions this day.
Without any further debate he and Arwain moved to their respective posts to advise their officers of the news and to confirm the tactics to be adopted.
The archers were to play the major part in slowing the Bethlarii column. During and since their integration into the Serens’ army, the Mantynnai had made many quiet changes to traditional weapons and tactics, and among these was the adoption of a larger, more powerful bow, and the training of men in its use.
It was said that the archers were a truly formidable force now, but today was the first time they were to be tested in a major conflict.
Firing from such cover as the valley sides offered, the first platoon launched its arrow storm-one, two, three volleys-into the advancing column. The effect was immediate as the heavy iron-tipped arrows penetrated stout leather breast-plates and, to a lesser extent, the more robust leather shields.
The soft winter silence that filled the valley, broken menacingly by the hissing flights of Serens’ arrows, began to be rent open by the sounds of wounded men screaming as they struck home.
The column came to a hasty and ragged halt and the archers maintained their fire until the Bethlarii regrouped, threw up a shield wall and sent their own archers forward to reply. However, their bows having a lesser range than the Serens’ and their target being smaller and more dispersed, the Bethlarii archers had little serious effect until a shield wall was provided which enabled them to move further forward.
At the same time, two groups of Bethlarii infantry separated from the main column and began moving up the valley sides with the intention of out-flanking the Serens.
These, in their turn, found themselves under fire from other archers and were obliged to retreat hastily.
For a long time the Serens succeeded in holding the Bethlarii column.
After a while, however, the flanking Bethlarii suddenly split into smaller groups and with a great roar charged forward to pursue the archers at speed. Small targets now, and moving quickly, they were too difficult for the archers to pin down, or even seriously delay.
The suddenness of the manoeuvre took the archers by surprise and many were slow in responding.
Arwain heard Ryllans catch his breath as they lay in their distant vantage watching the scene. ‘Move, move, move,’ he whispered to himself urgently. ‘They're fit, fast, and angry. Move!'
And in confirmation of these words, several archers, standing too long, and then encumbered by bow and quiver as they tried to flee over the awkward terrain, were caught and slaughtered by the Bethlarii.
Arwain and Ryllans watched the rising and falling swords and axes in silence.
Then there was a brief lull, until, now with loose-knit skeins of flank guards moving along the valley sides, the
