sprinted forward and, with a yell of glee, locked his eyes on where Alodar's unprotected form huddled on the wagon.
Alodar's legs strained to bolt away, but he held himself firm and pumped all the harder. He cringed in anticipation of the downward swinging blow but, as he did, felt a sudden resistance to his inward squeeze.
Alodar glanced up and ducked to the side as the warrior pitched forward into the wagon, his arm locked and his face in a puzzled stare. He looked back at the others who followed and saw them fall to the ground one by one, mimicking the grotesque statues of the children's game. He examined the glove and found the finger frozen solid in the small block of ice that had formed in the ladle.
'A simple matter of thaumaturgy,' he explained to Melab as he rose. 'And a demon who could separate the hot air from the cold in order to freeze the small quantity that once was a part of a larger whole.' He looked for a final time at what he had done. 'The circles of mail are just the right size to hold the water until it freezes into a solid coat. I witnessed the effect once before, although it was with a caloric ointment rather than common ice.'
The squad of archers came rushing up, and Alodar turned away, not caring to watch how they ensured that the downed warriors would bother them no more. He breathed deeply and tried to prepare himself to recast the prophetic enchantment. But before he could act, a sudden shout from the west caught his attention. At the very limit of Alodar's illusion, a troop of horsemen forded the stream and turned towards the battle. With a trumpeteer's charge, they kicked their mounts into a run and bore down on the flank. As Alodar watched, Feston wheeled his cavalry to meet the attack.
For the better part of a minute, the horsemen raced over the tall grass. Feston surged to the front and, with his sword over his head, waved on the stragglers. The troops rushed together with the sharp report of steel on steel. Great jets of mud and uprooted grass exploded skyward from the impact. The cries of men and horses in pain replaced the dull rumble of the charge. The thin lines broke and dissolved into small swirls of energy, ringing sword on shield and riders tumbling to the ground.
'They circled around the illusion on the far side,' Alodar said. 'And if on one flank, then why not the other?' He whirled to the east and saw four horsemen crossing the stream downstream of Grengor's dam. Alodar looked back. Feston's troop was fully engaged, the archers busy with their grueling task, and the line of warriors still pressed from the south. He thought of the impact of even four swords cutting into their thinly held flank. 'They will move too fast for this to work again,' he shouted to Grengor as he flung the bellows aside. 'Enough of the fancy craftwork. Back to our post and the few horses that we have. There is no one else to stop them.'
The wagon turned a slow circle and then bounced back to the clearing. Alodar sprang from the bed and ran for one of the horses. He scooped up and sheathed his sword and then jumped into the saddle. Wrenching around the reins, he kneed his mount into a gallop. The remaining marines abandoned their guard duty and followed.
Bandor's horsemen saw his troop coming and veered from bearing down on the nomads to meet the charge. Both men and horses were heavily draped in mail. The morning sun flashed angry reflections from the polished surfaces of helms capped with billowy blue plumes. A long standard decorated with Bandor's arms fluttered from a staff on the lead horseman's saddle, Although the heavily muscled mounts raced rapidly forward, the men sat stiffly erect as if walking in a procession.
As they approached, each of the four reached to his side and spun a spiny balled mace into the air. Alodar drew his sword in response. Closing for the collision, he tried to recall Cedric's instructions on how best to deal with the whirling weapon. He frowned as he studied their orbits above the warrior's heads. They rotated so slowly that he could see the dodecahedral symmetry of the spikes.
He blinked and pulled back on the reins. 'Magic weapons!' he shouted. 'Maces of crystal resonance. I read of them in the library of the Guild. It is no wonder they come with only four. Our metal will do us no good.' He slowed to a trot, but two of his followers sped past and converged on the leader from both sides.
The marines swung their swords high simultaneously, aiming at the warrior's exposed side and his hand stiffly holding the reins. With a sudden jerk, the mace wrenched out of its flat trajectory and smashed into the blades, one after the other. Sparks flew at the contact and metal shrieked in protest as the surfaces grated together. One sword snapped at the hilt and sprang skyward. The other broke nearer the middle, sending both halves spinning to the ground. Before either man could recover, the mace dipped lower on its second revolution, crashing into one marine's jaw and hitting the other in the chest. With what sounded like the bursting of a bag of coins, the ringlets of mail tinkled to the ground.
'Stop the swing. It is the only way,' Alodar shouted. 'Hanging limply, they have no power; but so long as they whirl we have no weapon to stand against them.' He looked quickly about as the rest of the marines sped forward to engage the others. He saw one immediately knocked to the ground and heard again the shriek of breaking metal.
The leader did not turn to continue his attack on the marines as they rode past. He sighted on Alodar and kneed his horse forward. The banner on the mast at the rear of his saddle snapped stiffly with the increased speed. Alodar's eyes flicked to the standard, and he saw what he must try. Gathering his resolution, he grabbed his reins with his teeth. Sheathing his sword, he loosened a small shield hung from his saddle and held it stiffly with both hands. Biting down on the leather, he hunched behind his protection and aimed for the slowly revolving ball.
At the last instant before they collided, Alodar tilted the top of his shield backwards and ducked even lower underneath its layers of hide and steel. With a jolt that shocked his arms numb, the ball hit the flat surface, crumbling metal and ricocheting up and over his sheltered form. His horse stumbled, dropping one knee to the ground and then the other. Alodar pushed from his stirrups as he fell, tossing the pieces of shield skyward.
With one arm he reached across the warrior's waist, pivoting himself up behind on the horse's back. He ducked beneath the mace as it swung overhead. With his other hand, he ripped the banner from its mast. He flung the tangle of cloth upwards into the path of the ball just as it came around a second time.
The sharp spikes ripped the fabric, but Alodar tugged and crashed the weapon down to his side. The horseman pulled on the chain, but before he could wrench it free, Alodar's two marines circled back alongside and grabbed his arms. Alodar linked his hands around the helm. With a back-straining tug, he rolled off the horse. One marine pulled with the thrust and the second pushed from the other side. The warrior tipped and then slid from the saddle.
Alodar scrambled free and spun about in time to see one of Bandor's men lean low and dip his mace as he raced by. Alodar dived for the ground, feeling the weapon whistle past his ear. He looked up to see another of his marines charge from the left, his surcoat outstretched in imitation of what he had just seen. The second mace snagged as the two men collided. They tumbled to the ground in a heap with the rest.
Alodar got to his feet and saw the last two of his troop staying just beyond the range of Bandor's remaining warriors, tauntingly holding forth scraps of cloth rather than gleaming swords. Alodar exhaled slowly, bracing himself to return to the wagon and prepare for the next breakthrough.
Before he could act, he heard the beginning of a high-pitched buzz above the clash of battle. The men still remaining on horseback obscured his view, but there was no mistaking the direction from which it came. Along the line, the fighting momentarily stopped. Even Bandor's men looked over their shoulders for the source of the noise. Then suddenly the sound grew into an ear-ringing crescendo. From the south, a streak of black darkened the sky and descended onto the battlefield.
The plunging shaft broke against the line of Cedric's mail. Like a wave against a shallow shore, it rolled down its length to the last combatants at either end. With cries of pain and alarm, the rearmost line bolted from their formation, madly flailing arms and beating at mailed chests and backs. Despite his losses, Cedric had stood three deep against his foes; but now he thinned to two, and in some places a single defender opposed the wall massed against him.
'Imps, a swarm of imps,' Grengor exclaimed as he rode closer, dragging one of Bandor's ensnared followers along the ground. 'They are stinging through the ringlets of mail. No man can swing a decent blow with such distraction from a dozen directions at once.'
Alodar grabbed his glass to see if the flanks escaped the enraged buzzing which hovered over the center. But his attention was pulled upwards as he saw a spray of fiery arcs bending down out of the sky towards Grak's nomads. Oil-soaked rags attached to long-vaned arrows descended in formation and followed precise trajectories to land in the barbarians' rear. As each hit the ground, it exploded in a shower of flame that flashed in a display of eye-paining brilliance. Alodar shielded his face from the bursts. As he blinked his eyes back into focus, he saw that where each arrow had struck stood a small, scaly, grotesque form, a miniature of the demons which had
