Good shot, Kanin observed.
Not bad, Khollo agreed, nocking another arrow. We’ll need a few more of those though.
Kanin growled in agreement, then blasted a lutag and its rider with flame. The pair went down, writhing in agony. The next vertag thrust a weapon that looked like a sword blade bound to a long pole at Kanin, trying to fend him off. But Kanin avoided the clumsy thrust and hit the rider with his tail as he passed. Khollo fired another two arrows, taking a lutag through a front shoulder and a vertag in its belly.
When Kanin climbed into the sky after the second pass, leaving a dozen or more broken lutags and their riders in his wake, Khollo saw that the enemy force had been largely destroyed on this side of the mountain. A few isolated riders were trying to regroup and form some sort of assault, but it was a futile effort. They were ridden down and destroyed by the light cavalry, or else coolly picked off when they got too close to the Sthan archers.
Our work here is done, Khollo said to Kanin, placing his unused arrow back in his quiver and lowering his bow. Let’s see how the others are faring.
Not well, Kanin answered immediately. The south slope is in trouble.
Khollo twisted in the saddle, peering in the direction Kanin had indicated. The archers were still pouring arrows into the canyon, but roughly half of them had turned and were trying to bring down an oncoming horde of lutag riders, perhaps a hundred or more. Khollo searched for the cavalry that had been assigned to protect the archers, and soon noticed the still bodies of dozens of horses, a few lutags and vertaga scattered among the carnage.
The young warrior looked down into the canyon next, making sure the main body of the army was not in too much trouble. The partially fortified position the Sthan occupied was holding steady, keeping the vertaga at bay for the most part while the catapults continued to batter away at the gates with boulder after boulder. The ram and its carriers stood nearby, quite forgotten and rather useless.
The south flank it is, Khollo decided. We’ll try a wall of fire first, see if we can break up the charge. If that works, we can go after individual riders, if not –
Enough planning, let’s go.
Kanin swooped over the canyon, headed for the southern slope and the exposed archers firing desperately at the oncoming riders. Hoofbeats echoed off the walls of the canyon and for a wild moment Khollo thought that some of the cavalry had survived and were rushing to the southern slope as well. But he discovered that the noise was being created by the lancers, galloping towards the lake, aiming to take the vertaga from the rear and surprise them. Khollo watched them go, then refocused on the skirmish ahead, hoping that he and Kanin would get there in time.
Thirty meters separated the lutags from the archers, then twenty. The beasts were incredibly fast, covering the distance in long bounds, snarling and slavering, their riders yelling and brandishing crude lances.
Then, with ten meters to go, Kanin swooped between the two forces, bathing the scrub growth in fire.
Lutags sprang back in surprise, turning and scrambling away from the flames. The archers continued firing through the wall of fire, picking off the now stationary enemy force at a prodigious rate. A few vertaga riders tried urging their demonic steeds through the flames, but only one succeeded. The lutag went up like a torch, and both the beast and its rider collapsed, burning fiercely. While the others milled and prowled uncertainly, the archers continued firing, more and more turning away from the battle in the canyon and towards the trapped lutag riders.
Kanin dove again, strengthening the wall of flames but staying out of the path of the Sthan arrows. Khollo added his own shafts to the deadly rain, taking out three riders and a lutag. As his last shot struck, a vertag at the rear of his group lost his nerve. The rider wheeled his lutag around with a savage jerk, then retreated up the mountainside, back towards Dun Carryl. There was a pause, then more and more riders joined the retreat, though a few attempted to circle the flames instead and flank the archers. Their numbers had been reduced too much by the archers and the deserters though, and they fell easily before the Sthan soldiers. As the last lutag rider fell, Kanin landed near the edge of the canyon, gazing back towards the mountain.
Some progress, the dragon observed. But there is still a long way to go.
Khollo sighed and dismounted, stretching his legs. His thigh muscles were sore from riding during the first part of the battle, and the smoke from the fires Kanin had started all over the mountain was stinging his eyes. Here, closer to the ground, the smoke was not as bad. Khollo moved to the edge of the canyon and peered down into it curiously, checking on the progress of the larger battle.
For a moment, there were so many thrashing bodies that Khollo could not tell how the fight was going. Then he managed to pick out where the Sthan line was, and the standards of individual lords and their men. The catapults were still firing, though they had made hardly a dent in the gates. Relam’s standard had been moved towards the gate, right where the Sthan were battling furiously with the vertaga flooding out from Dun Carryl. Khollo estimated that somewhere between five and six thousand of the beasts had come out of the tunnels so far, with more advancing all
