“In the name of the Nameless One, what magic?” the unit officer reassured the anxious soldiers. “That’s the sound of the half-pints’ cannons at Nuada. The fun must have started there already!”
The soldiers craned their necks, trying to see what was happening on the far side of the Field of Fairies, but the long dark tongue of the Rega Forest prevented them from seeing the castle and anything going on close to it.
“Look!” someone shouted.
Jig shifted his gaze from the forest to the left road. The first forces of the army of the Nameless One had appeared on that side of the field.
“Does she have a name?” asked the gnome, lighting up his pipe.
“Actually, it’s a he.”
“All right, so what’s his name?”
“Invincible.”
“Well now, that certainly suits him,” the cannoneer said with a nod, examining the shaggy ling, who was nestled securely on Honeycomb’s shoulder. “My name’s Odzan, but the lads all call me Pepper.”
“Honeycomb.”
“Yes, I know already. The commander told me. A Wild Heart, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Yes.”
“I heard what happened to you up at the Lonely Giant. Was it really hot?”
“I wasn’t there.”
“Ah … I heard that fifty of your lads survived and managed to get away.”
“Forty-seven.”
“Ah … Are they in your unit?”
“No, they’re in the center, as far as I know.”
“Hmm,” said the gnome, blowing out a smoke ring. “Then how come you ended up in the army on the right?”
“They said they needed a unit officer.”
“So you and your lads are going to defend our beards?”
“It looks that way.”
There it was again in the distance.
“They’re having a hot time of it. Forty minutes they’ve been blasting away. And the enemy’s in no hurry to come our way. Surely Lepzan’s not going to do all the work for us? He used to be a real jackass, too. Couldn’t even light a fuse properly. And now just look at him blaze away! I remember what happened one time in the Steel Mines…”
Honeycomb wasn’t listening to the garrulous gnome. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. It had been a bit of a surprise to find himself at the Field of Fairies. It wasn’t all that long since the magician at Cuckoo Castle told the Wild Heart he was well and completely cured of the after-effects of the orcish shamanism. A month and a half at the most.
When he left the Border Kingdom, Honeycomb had made his way to Ranneng, and from there to the capital, where he had to deliver the letter left for him by Alistan Markauz. When his business had been dealt with and the Wild Heart was wondering what to do next—wait for the group to come back to Avendoom or go straight to the Lonely Giant—the Nameless One had invaded the kingdom.
Chance had brought him together with Izmi Markauz, who remembered the yellow-haired warrior from his fight with the ogre in the royal palace. The lieutenant of the Royal Guard immediately offered the Wild Heart the command of a unit of a hundred men. Honeycomb had tried to refuse at first, saying his place was with his comrades who had survived the fall of the Lonely Giant, but Milord Izmi could be quite persuasive.
So now Honeycomb found himself in command of sixty swashbuckling rogues, selected for Slim Bows from various different forces, and forty crossbowmen from Shet’s detachment of northerners. The warrior had never commanded anything bigger than a platoon of ten men before, and at first he was a little frightened, but after a week with the unit he realized there was practically no difference between ten men and a hundred. Just give the orders and make sure the lads didn’t do anything rash when there’s no need.
And now his unit had been ordered to defend one of the three cannons located at Slim Bows.
“Will you look at that! I swear on my granddad’s bugle, those lads have all the luck!”
The gnome’s sudden exclamation roused Honeycomb from his reverie. The Wild Heart got to his feet, picked his ogre-hammer up off the ground, and looked to the left. There was a detachment of cavalry approaching the hill at full gallop. And another detachment the same size—a line of red and green—was heading toward the left army.
“Four thousand in a detachment!” declared Rott—the commander of the crossbowmen in Honeycomb’s unit —screwing up his eyes. “It looks as if the Crayfish have put all their cavalry into the field. The left flank is in for a tough time all right.”
“Rouse the lads,” Honeycomb ordered as he watched the red and green wave rolling on. “If they falter going up the hill, they’ll come our way.”
“That’s the boom of the Crater on the hill,” Pepper chuckled, raising his head to look up at the sky.
Honeycomb looked up, too, and he saw a column of smoke go soaring up toward the sun, hang for a moment at its highest point, as if it was wondering whether it ought to fall or not, and then come shrieking down toward the ground.
The gnomes on the hill had miscalculated—the cavalry had already ridden past the area where the ball landed—and the mighty explosion simply threw soil up into the air. The only positive outcome was that the horses in the rear line of the cavalry were terrified, and for a while there was complete chaos in the lines.
“What do you think you’re firing at, you villains?” Pepper roared, shaking his fists, as if they could hear him. “Fire at the target, you lousy bunch of dwarves. You’ll be reloading the thing for another half hour now! Crack- handed idiots! Who’s in that team up there? Zhirgzan! Rotate our weapon. With the help of the gods, we’ll hammer the cavalry in the left flank! When are we ever going to get a chance to fire?”
Izmi Markauz’s horse was still nervous after the shot from the Crater, and he scratched its ear. The animals didn’t like the strange noise, but there was nothing that could be done about that.
On the left flank of the center everything was still calm and the reserve had not been required. The greater part of the battle was still to come, and all the soldiers of the Royal Guard could do was watch as the Crayfish cavalry that had arrived along the left road divided into two equal sections and made for the infantry in the center and the battalions of the left army.
Two explosions shook the air behind the prince’s back and two cannonballs went flying over the infantry’s heads and hurtled toward the advancing cavalry. The first whistled over the horsemen’s heads and landed far down the field, without doing the enemy any harm. The second smashed straight into the galloping cavalrymen, knocking several men down, and exploding in the center of the attacking formation.
Even from there he could hear the screams of the men and the whinnying of the wounded and terrified horses. The Crayfish cavalry’s attack formation was broken, creating a scene of total pandemonium. The riders could scarcely control their hysterical horses, and there was no way the attack could be continued.
“Well done, the gnomes!” shouted one of the bowmen standing behind the infantry.
The prince turned round. The bowmen standing only ten yards away from him had certainly not been wasting their time. Each of them had brought two sharp-pointed poles up onto the hill, and now they were surrounded by an entire forest. Before the enemy could get to the Wind Jugglers in their light armor, he would have to force his way through this barrier. Facing a barrage of arrows. And if he did manage to get through, the warriors would hang their
