‘Stay with me then,’ Erlein said, in a voice leeched of all strength. ‘Stay with me, both of you.’
There were sudden shouts and then screaming below them. Not from the battlefield. From the ground to the north. All of them but the wizards wheeled around to see.
Ducas had sprung his trap. Firing from ambush his outlaws unleashed a score of arrows at the Ygrathens, and then swiftly let fly as many more. Half a dozen, eight, ten of their attackers fell, but the King’s Guard of Ygrath were armoured against arrows even in the blazing heat, and most of them pushed on, reacting with frightening agility despite the weight they carried, moving towards Ducas’s spread-out men.
Devin saw three of the downed men get up again. One pulled an arrow from his own arm and stumbled resolutely on, pressing towards their ridge.
‘Some of them will have bows. We have to cover the wizards,’ Alessan snapped. ‘Any man with any kind of shield, over here!’
Half a dozen of the men remaining on the hill rushed over. Five had makeshift shields of wood or leather; the sixth, a man of some fifty years, limped behind them on a twisted foot, carrying nothing but an ancient, battered sword.
‘My lord Prince,’ he said, ‘my body is shield enough for them. Your father would not let me go north to the Deisa. Do not deny me now. Not again. I can stand between them and any arrows, in Tigana’s name.’
Devin saw the suddenly blank, frightened look on many of the faces near them: a name had been spoken that they could not hear.
‘Ricaso,’ Alessan began, looking around. ‘Ricaso, you need not . . . You shouldn’t have even come here. There were other ways to . . .’ The Prince stopped. For a moment it looked as if he would refuse the man as his father had, but he said nothing more, only nodded his head once and strode away. The lame man and the other five immediately placed themselves in a protective circle around the wizards.
‘Spread out!’ Alessan ordered the others. ‘Cover the north and the west sides of the ridge. Catriana, Alais— keep your eyes on the south in case some of them make it around behind us. Shout if you see anything move!’
Sword in hand, Devin raced for the northwest edge of their hill. There were men fanning out all around him. He looked over as he ran, and caught his breath in dismay. Ducas’s men were in pitched battle on the uneven ground with the Ygrathens, and though they were holding their own, taking a man, it seemed, for every one of them that fell, that meant that they were falling. The Ygrathens were quick and superbly trained and ferociously determined. Devin saw their leader, a big man no longer young, hurl himself against one of the outlaws and hammer the man flat to the ground with a blow of his shield.
‘Naddo! Look out!’
A scream, not a shout. Baerd’s voice. Wheeling, Devin saw why. Halfway to the other hill, Naddo had just beaten back an Ygrathen, and was continuing a fighting withdrawal towards a clump of bushes where Arkin and two others were. What he didn’t see was the man who had flanked wide to the east and was now rushing towards him from behind.
What the running Ygrathen didn’t see was the arrow that hit him, fired from the summit of the ridge by Baerd di Tigana with all the strength of his arm and the skill of a lifelong discipline. Far away, unbelievably far, the Ygrathen grunted and fell, an arrow in his thigh. Naddo whirled at the sound, saw the man, and dispatched him with a quick sword.
He looked up at the ridge, saw Baerd, and quickly waved his thanks. He was still waving, hand aloft in salute to the friend he had left as a boy, when an Ygrathen arrow took him in the chest.
‘No!’ Devin cried out, a fist of grief clenching about his throat. He looked towards Baerd, whose eyes had gone wide with shock. Just as Devin took a step towards him he heard a quick scrabbling sound and a grunt, and behind him Alais screamed, ‘Look out!’
He turned back just in time to see the first of half a dozen Ygrathens surging up the slope. He had no idea how they’d got here so fast. He howled a second warning for the others and rushed forward to engage the first man before he gained the summit of the ridge.
He didn’t make it. The Ygrathen was up and balanced, with a shield in his left hand. Charging at him, trying to drive the man backwards down the slope, Devin swung his sword as hard as he could. It clanged on the metal shield sending shock waves all along his arm. The Ygrathen thrust straight ahead with his own blade. Devin saw it coming and twisted desperately to one side. He felt a sudden tearing pain as the sword ripped him above the waist.
He let himself drop, ignoring the wound, and as he fell forward he chopped viciously for the unprotected back of the Ygrathen’s knee. He felt his sword bite deep into flesh. The man cried out and pitched helplessly forward, trying, even as he tumbled, to bring his own blade down on Devin again. Devin rolled frantically away, dizzy with pain. He clawed to his feet, clutching his ripped side.
In time to see the prone Ygrathen killed by Alais bren Rovigo with a clean swordthrust in the back of his neck.
It seemed to Devin that he knew a moment of almost hallucinatory stillness then in the midst of carnage. He looked at Alais, at her clear, mild, blue eyes. He tried to speak. His throat was dry. Their gazes locked for a second. It was hard for Devin to absorb, to understand this image of her with
