“If it were not too late to stop your ill-advised plan, I’d kill you right here,” said Roper.
“Ha!” Uvoren turned to face Roper fully, hefting Marrow-Hunter in his hands. He took a step towards Roper, but was given pause for thought by Helmec jumping from the saddle and pulling his sword free from its scabbard.
“You’re going nowhere near my lord,” warned Helmec. Uvoren considered him for a moment but was again distracted by a trumpet that sounded from behind Roper. Creaking round in his saddle, Roper could see Skallagrim’s legion beginning to draw near in the hail. On Roper’s other side, the Greyhazel legionaries had flooded through the gap in the Sutherners’ line and were now in the open. Many were turning on the flank of the pikemen, who could not swing their unwieldy weapons around and had to drop them and draw the short swords they carried instead. The legionaries ate away at the pikemen, pulling the gap further apart so that more and more Greyhazel poured through and began to attack the flank of the Hermit Crabs as well.
Skallagrim rode up behind Roper. “You called for us, my lord?” he asked eagerly.
“Hold there for the moment, Legate,” Roper said. “We will need your soldiers very soon. Prepare them to take the place of the Greyhazel Legion.” Skallagrim looked askance at Roper, who had even begun to question himself. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps this was a genuine mistake. There might not be any cavalry after all.
The Greyhazel were doing sterling work. They trusted their legate implicitly and had seized on this opening, hacking into the flank of the pikeline as though it were heather. Uvoren was baying, screaming them on, and it truly looked as though here was where they would splinter the Suthern line. Even the Hermit Crabs were being forced to wheel, faced by the ferocity of the legions on two sides. Roper stood in his stirrups, surveying the brawl uncertainly. He had been so sure there would be cavalry.
But at that moment, distant thunder began to rumble and did not stop. Roper strained his ears and looked out into the haze as the thunder rolled on, becoming louder and closer. Uvoren took a couple of paces towards the Greyhazel, hesitating. He could hear it too. From his vantage point on Zephyr’s broad back, Roper could see shapes moving through the hail.
Cavalry.
The thunder was the pounding of ten thousand hooves. A dense swarm of plate-armoured knights, their horses grotesquely caparisoned, came careening into view. Almost all carried shields and lances, armed for a shocking charge that would sweep away all before them. Through the haze, skirts swirling about their knees, the riders looked ghostly and formidable. The Greyhazel were not in ranks, they were disordered and most did not even face the enemy that solidified by the heartbeat. They would be obliterated and then? Then the knights would sweep through the gap and behind the legions, attacking at will.
“Form the Greyhazel up!” shouted Roper desperately, looking to his trumpeter who dutifully sent out the notes for Dress Ranks but it was not fast enough. The Greyhazel merely looked confused at such an order, and most had not even noticed the cavalry bearing down on them. Those who had seen the cavalry were beginning to edge back, seeing their doom thundering towards them.
Just one figure was fighting against the retreating legionaries, pushing his way into the front rank and stepping forward, in front of his peers. It was Gray.
What he was doing there, Roper had no idea. Perhaps the tides of war had spat him out of the side of the Sacred Guard. Or maybe he had been resting at the back, had seen where the Greyhazel fought and had known that was where the battle would be won or lost and that it was therefore where he was needed. Whatever the cause, the guardsman now stood alone before his peers as the hail thundered down, sword raised to meet the oncoming knights. Roper could hear him faintly, calling as the other legionaries backed away. “With me, my friends! With me or I die here alone! Will you help me? Will you die with me?”
There was an immediate reaction. Half a dozen Greyhazel legionaries jumped to Gray like iron-filings to magnetised rock. First among them was Hartvig, the disgraced former guardsman who had been one of Uvoren’s war council. He was at Gray’s side in an instant, with several others joining the two famous warriors. And then, as though the retreating line had the surface-tension of a puddle of water, that half-dozen sucked a score with them. A chain-reaction spread, warriors being dragged forward on the immovable figure of Gray and inter-linking. Swords were raised and there was a sudden jolt as the line lunged forward a little, reinforced by more and more warriors that joined them, like a blood-clot forming in the face of an arterial surge. Something brushed past Roper’s thigh and, looking right, he saw Helmec sprint past him, hoping to pile in with Gray, who was still shouting, growling over the top of the clash of battle that surrounded him. “Yes, my friends, come! Let’s end this together! To serve! To serve!” He was screaming now, galvanising the line which solidified and braced itself. They began chanting with Gray.
“Serve! Serve! Serve! Serve!”
It was evident madness. Disordered foot soldiers versus a shocking charge of heavily armoured knights could have only one winner. But there was something dog-like about the legionaries. Unshakeable unity and commitment to a cause had been drilled into them from their earliest years, so that now they were prepared to die for the sheer sake of it. Because they were not used to defeat and could not countenance retreat. Because they trusted Gray implicitly. Because the will to resist had passed all logic or reason. Because.
“Serve! Serve! Serve! Serve!”
The knights were roaring too as they charged at this hastily assembled line, sensing victory. They were forty,
