The Black Lord was the only Anakim horseman behind the Suthern line and he charged straight for the static knights. Faced with the swarming Greyhazel legionaries, many of these were pulling away and retreating. Roper spotted one who had not seen him, horse sideways-on to him and his charging mount. He raked back his spurs and held the mighty beast’s head straight, forcing him to smash into the knight’s horse. Zephyr’s bulk was irresistible and the knight was knocked flat, horse and all. Zephyr staggered slightly but simply rode over the prone knight and horse, Roper casting around for his next target. Another knight came riding at him, lance held skilfully level to pierce Roper’s heart. Killing this one was not difficult; Roper beat aside the lance and, once he was past its lethal tip, there was nothing the knight could do. Roper slashed Cold-Edge at the gap between the knight’s chestplate and helmet hard enough to cut halfway through his neck. The knight toppled backwards off his horse and tumbled out of sight.
Almost every other Suthern warrior was in headlong retreat before Roper so he turned Zephyr round to look at the back of the Suthern line. A steady trickle of pikemen, assaulted from the flank and the rear, had dropped their weapons and fled while they could, and as Roper watched this became a flood. The Hermit Crabs had stayed in their ranks but were edging backwards under the pressure of the legionaries who assaulted them with renewed savagery. Like a collapsing dam, a massive block of the pikemen suddenly disintegrated, chased by a swift steel wave.
More horns were sounding: Pursue Enemy. Someone appeared to have taken command in Roper’s absence and, under skilful manipulation, the Suthern line was being ripped apart. Those Sutherners who watched their fleeing comrades and the legionaries chasing them down knew the game was up and began to edge backwards. The hail still fell, the visibility was low and that meant the Suthern line collapsed more slowly than it might have done otherwise. But steadily, from the gap that had been of Bellamus’s own engineering, the line was peeling backwards. Pikes were abandoned, plate armour and chain mail were torn off as Sutherners scattered across Harstathur, trying to outrun their dreadfully quick opponents.
The giants.
Monsters. Freaks, demons, destroyers. God could not be on the side of such unholy creatures: they had used some sort of evil magic to gain victory this day. The subjects of the Black Kingdom were as brutal and uncompromising as they had always been taught. They did not back down, they did not give up, and they had somehow snatched victory on this lightning-struck field. And rampant at the head of them all was this monstrous Black Lord on his armoured destrier.
23Uvoren the Mighty
Helmec. Gray.
When the battle was won: when the Sutherners had swarmed back, some in good order, most panicked and weaponless, and the Black Legions had cut them down, Roper had returned to the site of the cavalry charge to search for his two friends. He found Pryce, who had outstripped the rest of the Sacred Guard, on the way back. “Help me! Gray has fallen!” Pryce stumbled awkwardly over the bodies to join Roper, the two of them scanning the killing floor. Pryce, apparently still energetic after the day’s exertions, began ripping bodies aside to reveal those lying beneath. Together, he and Roper located where they thought the knights had first struck the Greyhazel and searched the bodies there.
Dead faces stared up at them. Some with their helmets partially ripped off. Some carrying so many wounds that it was unbelievable that they had still been standing to sustain the last of them. Some with no obvious injuries at all. Many were alive, eyes shut and armoured chests still working. Roper passed all of these, his gaze so frantic that he was not sure his eyes would settle on one of his friends long enough to recognise them. Partly, he did not want to recognise them. How could either have survived that terrible press of flesh? Pryce was still tearing around like a dog looking for a wounded deer, roughly upturning the dead and injured. And somehow the hands were the hardest things to look at. Clawed about weapons; loose and empty; frozen while reaching for something: all were more evocative of intention than even the slack faces.
Roper had an idea he might be sick. It might ease his nausea and make the search swifter. He looked up for a moment, panting and poking a filthy finger into his visor to clear the tears that had begun to gather there.
There was a figure moving beyond him. One of the bodies was stirring. It dragged itself clear of a corpse on top of it and then staggered to its feet, stumbling over again to collapse on top of a dead horse. Roper took a hesitant pace forward, straining his eyes. The figure was slumped, panting, against the body of the horse. Roper lurched forward, the movement triggering something familiar. “Gray?”
The figure tilted its head drunkenly at Roper and then slipped feebly down on the horse, lying there. Roper was sprinting over but was overtaken by a dark blur as Pryce surged past him. Roper arrived just after the sprinter and the two knelt by Gray, Roper tugging off his own helmet. Gray had lost his some time during the charge
