carried something that might have been a spear or a staff of some kind, and he never moved at all.
With a breath of quiet resolve they surged towards us. Mithos yelled the order and there was a thin swish of bows from behind me. Still they came on, their steeds churning the grass as they galloped on. None fell to the arrows. I held up my hand. A second pattering of arrows flew overhead and fell harmlessly behind them. In four or five seconds they had halved the distance between us.
Wait. Wait.
“Shoot!” I shouted. I shot for the neck of a white charger with a cloak of crimson over its leather barding. It shuddered as the bolt struck home and dropped to its knees, but the rider slid easily from the saddle and drew out his scyax. Mithos grabbed my shoulder and thrust me to the earth. I didn’t even see how many we’d brought down. Not many, I think. We fell on our faces in the drainage ditch and the spearmen stepped over us.
My hands fumbled for the crossbow slide and began tugging it back. The sound of the horses grew deafening. Through the legs of the spearmen I saw their speed break as they hit the embankment and a couple of them stumbled. The horses lurched up the grassy slope and, refusing to go further, boiled around the spear line. I saw one horse, unable to halt its advance, lunge and spit itself upon a spear, falling only a couple of feet away from where I crouched. The spearman in front of me suddenly cried out and fell heavily, blood gurgling from his lips. He wasn’t the only one.
The raiders pulled back. I suppose the order to advance was given before they realized how large a hole gaped in our poor defenses. I think six or seven of our spearmen had fallen and the line no longer really existed. As the raiders drew away I could see the vast hulks of their dead horses. We had killed only two of the raiders themselves.
“Draw your swords,” shouted Mithos. The enemy were dismounting, unwilling to force their reluctant mounts on our meager spear line. They were coming on foot, grimly, deliberately, with their huge, cruel-headed scyaxes sparkling coldly in their hands. There were so many of them, it seemed madness to resist but, knowing what would surely happen if we attempted to surrender, I finished cocking my crossbow and struggled to my feet.
Vaguely I smelled the sour smoke of two wagons blazing at the front of the convoy and, with a defiant cry, aimed and shot at the advancing line. The bolt struck one of them in the head, rang out sharply, and glanced away. He paused for a second and came on. Terrified, I reached for my sword.
Orgos was beside me, his twin swords with their fine long blades held out before him. On my left a soldier dropped his spear and fled, crying bitterly. With murderous calm the enemy clambered up the embankment to where we waited. When the first man reached the top, Orgos cried out and fell on him. Mithos followed suit and a handful of others lunged and slashed inexpertly with their swords. More raiders pressed around us. I stabbed at one and he parried it easily. A young infantryman fell to a scyax beside me and his hot blood splashed across my arms.
That was enough for me.
I moved back from the fray as Orgos’s inspired blades swept a bronze head from its shoulders and then turned to fend off the strokes which fell upon him from all sides. I ran, turning to watch only when I was safe behind the heavy wheel of one of the wagons. My hands shaking worse, I fumbled with my crossbow and wondered if I could catch one of the stray horses and make a run for it.
Then out of the mist came the remnants of our cavalry with Garnet at the head, Lisha and Renthrette on the flanks. The Greycoast lancers hit the dismounted raiders in the flank, stunning them with the impetus of the wild charge. For a moment the tide changed and several of the enemy fell. But the advantage was lost as soon as the enemy got over the surprise. Then they turned to face the cavalry, some of them hacking at the horses to stop the advance while the rest retreated to their mounts.
What was left of our spear line broke rank and plunged down the embankment after them. There was a familiar flash of amber light, and the raiders seemed to slow, unsure of where they were or what they were doing. And out among them, leading the charge, was the source of the fiery flash, Orgos. He was a demon. Of the dozen or so men the raiders lost that day, I think Orgos killed half of them. Mithos ran with him and Garnet harried them from the saddle, his ax tracing wide and brutal arcs. I crept out from behind the wagon and stood up to watch.
It couldn’t last. The raiders shrugged off our inexperienced infantry and, by sheer weight of numbers, put us on the defensive again. A crossbowman was hacked down beside Mithos and the last of the spearmen turned tail and fled towards the wagons. The raiders went after them, though they shied away from Mithos and Orgos, the only ones still standing firm.
“Fight me, damn you!” roared Orgos.
He leapt into the mass of bronze-and-crimson warriors with Mithos at his heels. Garnet’s horse ploughed into the enemy and he leapt from it, swinging his ax as he dived. I caught a glimpse of Renthrette trading blows with two of them. There were dozens more. Absolute victory was theirs, but the party fought them still.
Then I saw Lisha. She stood apart, watching as the last of our men fell to the scyaxes. There were only two or three of our escort still fighting and the muddy earth was thick with corpses swathed in royal blue cloaks. Still, Lisha dug her heels into the glossy flanks of the black warhorse called Tarsha and crashed into the throng of the enemy.
“No!” I shouted.
The battle was lost. She heard me and for a split second her eyes found me out, oblivious to the plunging and stamping of her battle-trained stallion. Then she raised her black-shafted spear and struck downwards. There was a bluish spark like a small lightning storm, and a thunderous roar. I stared, astonished. Two raiders fell before her, and Tarsha’s hooves rained down upon them. The rest of them parted before her in confused panic as she made her way to where the remainder of our company stood: Orgos and Mithos with their blades outstretched daring the enemy to attack, Garnet and Renthrette bleeding but angrily defiant, and two or three tattered soldiers from Greycoast, the last of our hundred-man escort. They gathered about Tarsha’s steaming sides, and Lisha, her black hair spilling from her helm, looked sternly about her. I was pretty sure that sixty or more of the enemy remained, but only a couple of dozen were visible. The others had melted away in the mist, and that could mean only one thing: They were about to attack again.
It was now or never.
I slipped between the wagons and started to head in the opposite direction, hoping to lose myself in the misty fields till it was over. Then I could get a horse and head north. My adventuring days were done.
“Where shall we stand, sir?”
It was one of the Greycoast spearmen, who had recognized me. He had retreated to the wagons, to hide, probably, but now he had regained his laughable courage. He wasn’t alone, either. There were five or six others, one with a horse and a couple with bows, all clinging to the shelter of the wagons but now watching me expectantly.
“Do what you like,” I muttered, clambering over a dead horse to the far side of the road.
“Sir?” said the soldier.
“Be heroic,” I muttered sarcastically. “Charge!”
“That way, sir?” said the bewildered soldier, squinting out into the misty emptiness where I was heading and then glancing back to where Mithos and the rest stood, squared for the final, inevitable assault on the other side.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Definitely this way, if you value your skins.”
With that I started to run into the mist where it was densest, getting as far away from the wagons and the battle as I could. The few remaining stragglers ran after me, though God alone knew what they thought they were doing. Distantly I heard Orgos shouting at the enemy back there, but I ran on, gasping for breath, my heart thudding against my ribs, no thought in my head but escape.
Then the wind gusted, and everything changed.
The mist ahead shifted. It rippled clear for a moment and I saw the scarlet cloaks of forty men no more than ten yards away. They were dismounted, getting ready for a quiet attack on the rear that would wipe out the survivors. I would have sworn they hadn’t been there only seconds before, but they were there now, and I had run right into them.
I froze. The heavy mist was coursing back into place all around us. They obviously hadn’t seen me, and with care I might still slip by them and make a run for it. I was considering how I might do this when one of the infantrymen who had “fled” with me ran blindly into my back. I fell forward with a startled cry and, as I hit the ground, my temperamental crossbow went off. There was a shout of pain as one of the raiders twisted to the
