agilely off the poor beast and started waving his sword, hoping to hold out until help arrived, but Bedbug had his wits about him, and his heavy halberd came plunging down on the valiant man’s head right between the horns of his helmet. Without hesitating, Jig added a blow of his own, thrusting his halberd in under the man’s helmet.
While several soldiers in their section were pulling their pikes out of the horse’s body, another horseman performed the same maneuver, and his horse crushed part of the second rank. Two more horsemen drove in through the gap, then more.
And more.
The cavalrymen were losing their horses, but they were achieving something very important—a frontal section of the formation of the central battalion had been torn open, and the Crayfish who were nearby wasted no time.
Jig went dashing forward. The halberdier’s job is to deaden the momentum of the attackers but, without even knowing how, he found himself in the thick of the slashing and hacking. There were no more than fifteen Crayfish, and only three of them were still on their horses. The pikemen grasped their swords.
Jig struck one of the cavalrymen in the back with the shaft of his halberd, hacked at the leg of another with all his might, then took a good swing and thrust the spike of his halberd through the heavy cuirass of some noble warrior. Bedbug, who had somehow appeared beside him, cut off a horse’s leg, and the rider fell straight onto some soldier’s thoughtfully positioned pike.
Before Bedbug could straighten up, a cavalryman nearby struck downward with his lance and pinned the guardsman to the ground. Jig screamed out loud and attacked. The rider held out his shield. The guardsman struck again, caught his enemy by the neck with the hook of his halberd, and jerked, dragging him off his horse. Once again one of the pikemen was there to finish off the man, who was lying dazed and helpless on the ground after his fall out of the saddle.
“Form up!” someone shouted at Jig, and a soldier pushed him back.
He obeyed—he couldn’t bring Bedbug back now. The cavalry breakthrough had been halted and the pikemen re-formed their ranks.
“Cro-men, fire!”
The crossbows sang again. The crossbowmen in the frontal ranks of the battalion were joined by those from the rear ranks, who had already shot the cavalrymen who galloped through to the rear.
The remnants of the cavalry of the Crayfish Dukedom sensibly withdrew, taking crippling casualties from the steel rain of crossbow bolts.
“First rank stand erect! Crossbowmen! Into the third rank! At ease! Pikes in the air! Horse traps out of the ground! Ten paces back! To the count of the drum, march!”
Jig tramped back willingly with all the others, leaving an area littered with the bodies of men and horses in front of them.
“Hey, friend!”
Jig didn’t realize straightaway that he was being spoken to. It was a pikeman he knew.
“Glad you’re still alive.”
“Me, too.”
“Great, the way you dragged that bastard off his horse! Good for you!”
“That was too good for him! He killed Bedbug.”
“Yes, I saw. I’m sorry for the lad, but we gave them a good mauling!”
“What did they do to us?”
“About eighty gone.”
“Ha-alt!” came the order, and the battalion stopped.
The right and left battalions had followed the example of the central one, moving back to maintain the line of defense.
“Rest!” The order ran along the ranks.
It was only now that Jig realized just how heavily he had been sweating during the brief battle.
Izmi sighed in relief. Despite his misgivings, the left army had withstood the impact of the cavalry, and not only withstood it, but inflicted serious losses. More than a thousand Crayfish had been left lying on the ground, most of them killed by the hail of crossbow bolts and the elves’ arrows. The sections of the Nameless One’s army that retreated had now reunited with the cavalry that had been testing the strength of the center a few minutes earlier, and the surviving horsemen were re-forming into a broad attack formation. Izmi reckoned there were slightly fewer than seven thousand of them.
“Am I mistaken, milord? Doesn’t it look as if they’ve decided to break through on to the hill?” Vartek asked, screwing up his eyes. “The gnomes haven’t had time to reload the cannons yet.”
“Lower your visor and be prepared to lead the men out to help if the Crayfish crush the infantry.”
“Work, you sons of dwarves! Work!” Pepper tongue-lashed his cannoneers. “Can’t you see what’s happening out on the field? The center’s not the left army, they can’t muster that many pikes! We’ve got to give them a hand!”
“We are working, Pepper! Can’t you see?” red-bearded Zhirgzan panted in his deep bass voice.
“Then you’re working too slowly! Load faster!”
“Wait, Pepper!” said Honeycomb, who had borrowed the gnome’s spyglass to take a look at what was happening at Nuad. “Swing the cannon round.”
“What? What for?”
The Wild Heart handed the spyglass to the gnome without saying a word. Pepper looked in the direction indicated and roared.
“Agh, damnation! Looks like our turn’s come! Swing it round! Swing it! And stick that ball up your backside! Load it with grapeshot!”
“My prince, I’m afraid the gnomes will not have time to fire a second salvo,” said the Beaver Cap standing beside Stalkon: Two of the Beavers had been attached to the Prince of the Spring Jasmine as his bodyguards.
“Sound the alert!”
He had seen the cavalry’s unsuccessful attempt to break through the left army. Now the combined forces of the Crayfish would try to break the center.
“Tell the bowmen to aim at the horses!” the commander of the center ordered, keeping his eyes fixed on the approaching enemy.
“Already done!”
“Your Magicship! Is there any way you can help us?”
“I do not have any attack spells of sufficient power, Your Highness,” replied the magician sent by Artsivus. “I doubt if I could eliminate even fifty at a time.”
“Well, what about five times instead of one?”
“Then I’m afraid I would not be able to protect the soldiers against the magic of the shamans.”
The prince pursed his lips.
“But I think I can do something that will be useful to you.”
“What?”
“The Skating Rink,” the magician said, and smiled.
Izmi Markauz cursed the moment when his men were sent into the reserve. The center would need help now. That massive cloud of horsemen would sweep over the hill like an avalanche and not stop until it reached Avendoom. It looked as if the king had been too hasty in dismounting the cavalry. With them, there would have been a chance. Now everything depended on the will of Sagra and luck.
The Crayfish infantry had already appeared on the left road, and their sheer numbers were appalling. They were deploying along the Rega Forest, with the clear intention of attacking all three Valiostran armies. And with numbers like that, they could pull it off. In addition, several hundred warriors from the northern tribes were already hurrying along the road from Nuad to Slim Bows. The castle was still showing its teeth and mauling anyone moving along the road on the right, and as far as Izmi could see, the enemy hadn’t stopped trying to take the most northerly bulwark of Valiostr’s forces. But a large part of the Nameless One’s army had passed Nuad, completely
