“Then we are leaving?”
“What do you think?”
The man grinned. “If we charge now we might just be able to hack our way through to Dunild and then, while no one’s looking, I’ll cut his throat.”
Grigor chuckled and hitched his shield to his arm. “Yes, by damn. Let’s do something noble for a change!” Raising his sword, he began to run down the slope. Five hundred Grigor warriors took up their swords and followed him.
The front line of the Aenir slipped and slithered over blood-covered rocks and sprawled bodies, only to be cut down by the slashing iron blades of the clansmen. Leofas, his cold blue eyes glinting with battle fever, stood at the center of the defenders, Maggrig and Lennox on either side. Again and again the Aenir swarmed forward, only to be turned back by the sharp blades and steadfast courage of the defenders.
Drada alone among the Aenir was not surprised by the resolute defense, but he had been a part of many battles and knew what must happen now. The clans would fall back, there was no choice. Their strength was failing fast and their losses were enormous. The two at the center were both old men and their stamina suspect. Once they had fallen, the line would break.
Beside him Briga was poised for the final rush. He had been a warrior for more than twenty years and always, he knew, there came a point where the fight could be read like a game, where the ebb and flow could be charted like a steady current. They had reached that point now.
And the clans were ready to break…
The feeling swept among the Aenir and the battle cries began again. Once more the forces clashed. The clansmen fought silently now, leaden-legged and heavy of arm, and inch by inexorable inch they were forced back toward the open pass beyond.
Briga felt joy surge in his veins. No army in the world could hold now. It was over. The clans were finished!
Maggrig felt it too, and he cursed aloud as he clove his sword through an Aenir neck and ducked under a slashing blade. Well, if he had to die he was damned if it would be in the open ground he had fought so hard to defend. Dropping to his haunches he hurled himself forward into the Aenir, cutting and stabbing. Caught up in the frenzy of the moment, Leofas joined him, with Lennox and Intosh.
And the clans rallied, surging forward to join their leaders. The ferocity of the assault stunned the leading Aenir warriors and they fought to pull back. Briga, just behind the front line, turned to Drada. “It’s impossible!” he shouted. Drada shrugged.
As the Aenir front line backed away from him, Maggrig raised his sword defiantly. “Come on, you Outland scum. We’re still standing!”
A huge warrior in a wolf’s-head helm leaped from the Aenir ranks, sword raised. Maggrig parried the blow and reversed a cut to the warrior’s neck. The blade hammered into the mail shirt and snapped. Dropping the useless hilt, Maggrig grabbed the man by his mail shirt and hauled him forward, butting him savagely and crashing his fist into the man’s belly. The warrior doubled over, his head snapping back as Maggrig’s knee came up to explode against his face.
Intosh threw Maggrig a sword, Maggrig caught it by the hilt and sliced the blade through the back of the wolf’s-head helm. The Aenir died without a sound.
“You lice-ridden sons of bitches,” shouted Maggrig. “Is that the best you can do?”
A roar rose from the Aenir and the line lunged forward.
The battle raged once more and now there were no bloodcurdling battle cries-only the screams of the dying and the grim determination of the living to survive. The clansmen had been forced back, but their enemies had to climb a wall of their own dead to force a path to the dwindling band of defenders.
Asbidag had climbed into the saddle, the better to see the battle. His trained eye knew it had reached its final stage. A carle beside him screamed suddenly, pitching forward to the ground with a black-feathered shaft in his back. Arrows hissed through the air around him. Asbidag swung in the saddle, tearing his shield from the saddle horn.
At the mouth of the pass Gaelen lifted his war horn and blew three blasts. Eight hundred bows were bent and a dark cloud of shafts ripped into the horde.
Maggrig crashed his shield into the face of an attacker, hurling him from his feet, lancing his blade into a second man and dragging it clear.
“It’s Gaelen!” shouted Lennox. “He must have a thousand men with him.”
Maggrig staggered as an axe blade shattered his shield. He hammered his fist into the axe-man’s face, feeling the man’s teeth break under the impact. A lean Aenir swordsman pushed himself past Maggrig. Leofas blocked his blow, but lost his grip on the sword. Grabbing the man by the neck and groin, he hoisted him into the air and hurled him back among his comrades. The man vanished into the mass. Leofas recovered his blade, wincing as a sword cut into his shoulder. Lennox leaped to the rescue, his blood-covered club smashing the swordsman’s spine.
At the mouth of the pass Gaelen signaled for the women to scale the slopes on either side of the fighting men. Lara set off to the right with four hundred Haesten women behind her. As she climbed, Gaelen turned to Telor.
“Now let’s see what you can do with that blade,” he said.
Hitching his shield into place Gaelen ran at Asbidag’s carles, a hundred Pallides warriors yelling their war cry behind him.
His horse rearing and kicking, Asbidag saw death running at him. An arrow knocked his helm from his head, another thudded into his shield. Panic overwhelmed him. Kicking his heels to his horse’s side he rode through his own men, smashing their line, then veered away from the advancing clansmen. Arrows hissed around him and he ducked low over the horse’s neck.
Lara saw his flight and notched an arrow to the string, drawing smoothly and sighting on Asbidag’s broad back. The shaft sang through the air, punching through the Aenir’s mail shirt at the shoulder. Then he was through and clear and riding south. His horse carried him for a mile before collapsing and pitching him to the earth. He rolled to his feet. Three arrows had pierced the beast’s chest and belly; leaving it to die, Asbidag began the long walk south.
In the Folly, Asbidag’s panicked flight had opened the way for Gaelen and his warriors to smash the shield wall and engage the carles. Gaelen ducked under a two-handed cut and drove his sword home into the man’s chest. Beside him Telor leaped and twisted, his sword flashing in the sunlight, cleaving and killing. Two men ran at Gaelen. He blocked a blow from the first, gutting the man with a reverse stroke; his sword stuck in his opponent’s belly, he saw the second warrior’s sword arcing toward his head. Telor parried the blow, chopping his blade through the man’s neck.
The burly Pallides grinned. “Be more careful, Farlain. I can’t be watching out for both of us.”
In the valley all was chaos as Drada fought to hold the Aenir steady. Arrows rained upon them from both sides of the pass and the clans were fighting like men possessed. But it was a losing battle. Drada could feel that success was but a matter of moments ahead. Once they pushed the enemy back into the wider pass beyond, nothing could prevent an Aenir victory.
Glancing about him, the young Aenir warrior was horrified at the losses his force had suffered. Considerably more than half his warriors were down: twelve thousand men sacrificed to Asbidag’s stupidity!
But against this Drada had seen his father’s flight and it filled him with joy. No need to kill him now, and risk death from his carles. No Aenir would follow him ever again. He would be a wolf’s-head, disowned and disregarded.
Now Drada would have it all: the army, the land, and the magic Gates. He would build the greatest empire the world had ever seen.
“On! On!” he yelled. “The last yard!”
And it was true. The Aenir pushed forward once more.
Maggrig fell, slashed across the thigh. From the ground he stabbed upward, gutting his attacker. A blow sliced toward his head but Intosh blocked it-and died, an axe cleaving his skull.
Maggrig staggered to his feet, plunging his blade through the axe-man’s chest. A sword lanced his side and he stepped back, lashing out weakly. Lennox bludgeoned a path to stand alongside him, mace dripping blood.
