down a gentle slope towards the burnt-out remains of a village. The village was at the heart of a seething mass of scaly bodies. They weren't a cohesive army. The lanky goblins looked half-starved and wore mismatched armour looted from the dead of decades' worth of violence. Chieftains on horseback threaded their way through the crowd, waving and screaming encouragement. As the only goblins with horses, they stood out above their troops, where the masses could see them and the signals they gave.
Gabriella looked for familiar faces among her force. Crowe was looking at the enemy with a calculating expression, his colourless ponytail hanging out from the back of his helmet. He wore his battered coat over his mail. DeBarres was watching the enemy through a telescope, which he passed to Kannis. While Kannis took her turn with the telescope, DeBarres shuffled his horse sideways towards Gabriella.
'Well, it looks like you were right.'
'Did you ever doubt it?'
'Never.' He looked back at the enemy. 'You know what worries me?'
Gabriella couldn't imagine anything really worrying DeBarres. 'What?'
His pitted cheeks widened in a wry smile. 'What sort of force kicked that lot out of Freedom in the first place?'
'Raul?' Kannis called. 'They're moving.'
Gabriella looked at the goblins charging towards them, with the wolves and big cats ranging out in front. The bone-chilling howls of the maddened horde carried across the fields between them. The goblin tribes, their teeth and claws filed to needle points and razor edges, competed with each other to lead the charge, not caring which of their own side they trampled in their crazed rush.
Preceptor Raul DeBarres felt his spine tingle at the sight of so many hostiles, but he reminded himself that they were a mob, not an army. They weren't trained, they had no strategy, they were just driven by hunger and their own momentum. There might be hundreds of them, but every member of the Knights was worth a dozen of them. DeBarres knew that victory wasn't in question, but he feared that it would hurt.
DeBarres drew his sword and all along the lines weapons were likewise drawn. 'For the Lord of All! For Solnos! For your people!'
Gabriella DeZantez saw DeBarres rise slightly in the saddle, waving a hand forward, slashing it towards the goblins. Gabriella was already nudging her horse to one side, guiding it towards the dust cloud that signalled the goblin rush. She listened to the drumming of so many feet and paws rushing towards her across the earth.
Then battle was joined and the world disappeared in a red haze, and a cacophony of clashing metal and screaming voices. A wolf leapt at her and she cut it aside, before slicing the head from a goblin. She made her horse rear, its fore-hooves chopping down into goblin arms, shattering bone.
Blood filled Gabriella's senses. Red and green, sometimes even black. It sprayed across her vision, clouded her nostrils, flavoured her lips. She could even have sworn she heard it spatter on her helm. Then she really began to fight.
Travis Crowe slashed left and right with his broadsword, cleaving goblin skulls and spreading what passed for their brains across the trampled grass. He did his best to stay close to Gabriella and watch her back, but the Knights of the Swords all wore the same helms and surcoats, with the crossed-circle of the Final Faith. It was damn near impossible to tell them apart.
He pushed his horse forward towards a knot of goblins protecting one with tattoos marking him out as a chief or shaman. Crowe hoped he was the former and not a magic-user. Either way he was a more important target.
He spurred his horse straight at the tattooed leader, swinging the broadsword right for his tattooed face. His coat flapped like the feathers of a carrion bird, bringing death and decay. The goblin's eyes widened just before they were bisected by sharp iron. The cluster of goblins scattered and fell prey to Kannis' men.
A moment later, Crowe cursed violently as searing pain ripped across his thigh, and he wheeled his horse to trample a goblin as it withdrew a blade from him.
Roaring at the top of his voice, Crowe set about killing more of the creatures for the pain they'd caused. Now they had made him really angry.
Kannis led her unit in a wide wheel around the goblins' left flank. Crowe's killing of one of their leaders had caused a weakness in that area. Swarming lines of the creatures met steel and iron and were found wanting. The mix of Knights and mercenaries charged down the goblins and the creatures ranks were beginning to fragment.
Filled with the red joy of battle, Kannis and her men swept through the weak and starved hordes and scythed them down.
Then something slammed into her chest and she was momentarily floating. For a heartbeat, she enjoyed the surprising sensation of weightlessness, but then the world smashed into her back and it felt like every rib exploded like a thousand suns.
The mounted Knights crashed into the charging goblins like a mailed fist hitting a grinning mouth. Sabres cut down into the goblin onrush and dozens of the creatures fell screeching to the earth and rolled wildly though their ranks. Other goblins scrambled for better positions, or hurled themselves flat, risking being trampled under hoof rather than fall to the sabres.
DeBarres and his Knights wheeled their mounts around, drawing sabres and longswords, before charging again. This time they dropped into the enemy lines on their left flank and charged lengthwise, splitting skulls and cleaving heads from inhuman bodies.
The goblins were running purely on instinct, as DeBarres had suspected; instead of closing in under the Knights' reach and trying to bring down the horses, they began to scatter. The goblins' lines ripped themselves apart and DeBarres could see clear through the swirling lines to where Kannis' mount was rearing and riderless.
'Kannis!' he screamed, and spurred his horse towards hers. He narrowly avoided running over Kannis herself, who was twitching on the flattened grass. He reached down, as a couple of Knights knelt to check on Kannis.
'Get her on my horse!'
Together, the two soldiers hoisted Kannis onto the flanks of his horse, and beat their way towards the edge of the battle.
The stink of sweat-lathered horses and warm blood assaulted Gabriella. The earth itself rose upwards in front of her. Gabriella clung on grimly as her mount reared back and she managed to guide it alongside the suddenly- rising embankment.
'Sorcery!' someone shouted. 'They've got shamans!'
Gabriella looked around frantically for any sign of the spell caster.
As she scanned the battle, she saw DeBarres carrying Kannis to safety, cutting down anything that got in his way. She looked for Crowe and waved to him.
'Look after DeBarres and Kannis!'
He waved in return and plunged into the fray around the pair.
She saw the shaman then, dancing as if possessed and hurling power from his fingertips. With a roar of fury, Gabriella pulled a javelin from a fallen horse and hurled it with all her might.
It impaled the shaman cleanly and he fell twitching. Screams arose from the survivors of the goblin horde as they scattered. To all intents and purposes, the battle was over.
'Swords!' Gabriella shouted, 'To me!'
Gathering her forces, she led them in a wide sweep, cutting down the scrambling, flopping monstrosities as they panicked and fled.
'To victory!'
The twilight was rent by occasional screams. Some of them were the sounds of the wounded and dying men
