the surly brutes who had accompanied Bloodgutter from Lemish, took their place beside their chieftain and added a steady barrage of large rocks to the fray. In the press below, most of the knights could not even turn their horses around, much less make an escape from the lethal mess.
Countless boulders tumbled from the heights, crushing knights, breaking the backs and legs of terrified horses. Ankhar himself heaved over one hundred boulders. More than a thousand archers showered the knights with their arrows until it became a killing ground such as Krynn had hardly known.
At the start of the charge, a thousand proud knights rode into the valley. After an hour of slaughter, less than a hundred straggled out.
“Rally to me, men! Hold the bastards here!” Sir Marckus cried, leading his charger back and forth along the line of swordsmen he had scrounged from the remnants of broken units. They were terrified, but his voice steadied them, made them remember that their best chance to live was to hold together.
“Stand and fight, man!” Marckus called, when a wild-eyed captain, one of Crawford’s aides, came thundering past on a panicked steed.
“Make way!” screamed the man. “Fall back to the south! Every man for himself!”
Marckus grimaced as he turned away, but not before he saw the man fall, pierced through the back by a plunging arrow. He spared no time on regret-better to try and save the lives of those who faced the foe than to worry about the fate of those who died trying to flee.
The cause was hopeless. The entire right wing of the army had been shattered, and their most powerful striking force, the armored knights, had been lost in the foolhardy charge into the narrow valley. The barbarian half giant, Marckus knew, had outgeneraled the Duke of Caergoth at every turn.
The captain found his duke, ashen faced and trembling, astride his stallion at the rear of the army. Reynaud, grim-faced and furious, was with him. Marckus glared for a moment at his fellow captain. It was Reynaud who had scouted the hills, reporting them impassable for a flanking maneuver. It was too late for recriminations-now, survival was all that mattered.
“Take the duke to safety!” ordered Marckus. “I’ll lead a fighting withdrawal.”
Without a word, the other captain slapped the hindquarters of the duke’s horse, setting the steed to flight. Reynaud joined him, the two of them galloping southward across the plains.
Marckus did the best he could, trying to hold the men together in retreat. When the line was intact, at least each man could draw on his comrades. They battled stubbornly, giving up ground. In doing so they gave the majority of the survivors a chance at escape.
Glancing back, the captain could see the catapults and ballistae, the wealth of supplies and cargo in the great baggage train. All were overrun by goblins and draconians. The enemy swarmed around the artillery pieces, hacking at the wooden frameworks, igniting them with oil and torches. At least they wouldn’t be able to turn those captured weapons against the army of Caergoth.
That was slight consolation, and the retreat continued. By late in the day, the army of Caergoth, those who remained, had left the field, and the goblins only ceased their pursuit when they were too tired to kill any more.
CHAPTER THIRTY — TWO
T hings have gone very badly.” Coryn announced calmly, but Jaymes sensed disaster in the uncharacteristic way she bit her lip as she spoke.
She met him in the skeletal gatehouse of ruined Garnet. They had spent most of the day in the abandoned city, hearing the sounds of battle, seeing the smoke smudging the northern sky. Neither had wanted to go and witness the slaughter, but late in the afternoon Coryn had departed for a reconnaissance.
“So Ankhar pulled a surprise and attacked out of the hills?” Jaymes asked.
“Yes. Come, you can almost see from up here.” She led him up the damaged stairway to the top of the gatehouse. Staying low, they looked across the western plains.
They could see troops streaming past. The nearest were a mile or two away from them, and all were heading south as fast as they could march. A few horses, including one that looked like the duke’s proud stallion bearing a whip-wielding rider, raced among those afoot, quickly outdistancing them.
“They all have to cross the King’s Bridge,” Jaymes said. “If they’re closely pursued, it will be a slaughter.”
“Is there something we should do? Something to help?” Coryn asked, her face drawn.
“Why should we do anything?” challenged the warrior. “This isn’t our fight.”
“Decent men are dying out there!” snapped the wizard. “Men who are paying for their lord’s hubris, his stupidity, with their lives! It isn’t Duke Crawford I’m concerned about-it’s those brave soldiers and their widows, their fatherless children!”
Jaymes scowled, rubbing a hand across his face, and made no reply.
“Dammit! You wait here and watch then,” Coryn said contemptuously. “I have to do what I can!”
The warrior winced as though she had struck him. “I can think of one thing we could do that might be useful,” he said.
“What?”
He explained his idea, and she agreed. “I’ll go to the Vingaard Range. I’ll see if I can find Dram-if so, I’ll meet you at the bridge.”
“All right.”
After a fervent embrace, Coryn departed with a magical word, and Jaymes rode out onto the plain astride the horse he had stolen from the camp pickets the night before.
The scope of the disaster was immediately apparent. The swordsman fell in with the retreating army-no longer did he need to try and slip past vigilant sentries or bluff his way through checkpoints. He rode past footmen fleeing south as fast as they could run, then encountered a solitary captain, a weathered old veteran who wore the crest of the Rose, struggling to command a disorganized rear guard. The man welcomed Jaymes’s arrival with an appraising look and a nod of approval.
“Help steady these lads in the middle, if you can,” said the captain.
When a small group of goblins rushed them from behind Jaymes charged them singlehandedly, drawing and waving his sword-though he didn’t make it flame. Even so, the gobs fell back, and his example seemed to inspire the troops, who started taunting and jeering the enemy. The pursuers kept up the pressure, staying in sight but out of arrow range as they followed the retreat.
Every once in a while, a few goblins would rush forward, and the rearguard line would fight stubbornly. By sunset they had managed to hold off the pursuit long enough that the bulk of the army could make for their distant city. All the survivors would still have to pass over the long bottleneck formed by the King’s Bridge.
Jaymes and the Rose captain rode at opposite ends of the last remaining line. The makeshift brigade included men who bore crossbows. Others were armed with pikes or swords. The goblins came after, almost desultorily. The goblin strikes were usually beaten off, but on each occasion several more valiant soldiers fell.
Some worg riders and their wolves also rode forward in daring assaults. Once, Jaymes’s horse reared at one of these sallies and brought its heavy forehooves down hard, crushing the skull of the leading worg. After that, the enemy cavalry stayed away.
Jaymes’s leadership was of far more value than his sword in the retreat.
“Drop those pikes!” he urged at one point, seeing that the long poles wielded by some men-designed for tight ranks-were of little use now. “Pick up swords and shields. Stand fast, men!”
There were plenty of weapons available. Many of the troops, as they fled south, had simply cast aside their swords, crossbows, and shields. The rout was as chaotic as any Jaymes had ever seen.
At one point he came upon an overturned armorer’s wagon. Among the litter of blades and spear shafts he spotted a crate that had burst open to reveal several small, single-handed crossbows. He took only a few seconds to dismount, pick a couple of his favorite weapons, and snatch up several quivers of the small, lethal darts that
