He tilted his head down slightly, the brim of his helmet blocking the glare of the sun—Roan thought of everything. On his left arm was the Dherg shield complete with runes; the design had been copied on all the new iron shields. Some of the men painted pictures on theirs. The less talented went with a big X or T; the more adept painted lions or dragons. Wedon, his First Spearman, had painted a target bullseye, saying he’d rather they hit it than him. Raithe left his blank. He liked the way it shone.
He would have bet against his reaching the far side of the bridge but imagined the gods enjoyed absurd poetics. Raithe, the quiet son of Herkimer, who had promised his sister and mother he wouldn’t be like his father, would fall in battle on the plains of Dureya less than a day’s walk from where he was born. Having accomplished nothing, making no difference to anyone, his failure couldn’t possibly be more complete. And yet he walked quickly. Raithe, who had never before taken pleasure from a fight, was eager for this one. An explosion had been building in him for months. Frustrations caused by a shut door had wound him tight, and the coil screamed to be unleashed. If not for the fane’s army, it would have been Nyphron. With luck, he would die and be free of it all.
They reached the far side of the bridge without incident. The only indication the elves knew they were coming was the darkening sky. Early morning looked like twilight. As they cleared the bridge, Raithe saw the fane’s army—the rows and rows of tents set in perfect squares. In front, in gleaming bronze, stretched lines of elven soldiers. Two thousand formed a wall of spears and shields.
“It’s too wide,” Wedon told Raithe. “Too wide for us to form three-deep. They’ll fold around. They’ll flank us easy.”
Raithe was impressed by the old farmer’s transformation into a thinking soldier. “But it’s thin. Look there.” He gestured with his spear to a rise where a group of Fhrey gathered. “That hill, that’s Wolf’s Head. That’s our objective. We aren’t here to win, we just need to open a path and get close enough for Moya to hit that hill. Our three-deep will give us the endurance to get there.”
“And our flanks?”
“Order the ends to fold.”
“And if they surround us? How do we get back out?”
What makes you think we ever had any chance to get back?
Wedon sounded like a soldier, but he wasn’t—not yet—and he certainly wasn’t Dureyan. The thought of surviving a battle was far too optimistic.
Accept that you’re going to get hurt, that you’re going to die; embrace it, and you’ll find the freedom to live. This was one of the many ridiculous things his father had told him that sounded less stupid every day.
“We’ll make a full square if we have to.”
“Not very smart tactically, but…” Malcolm gave Wedon a crazy grin. “Not much chance of anyone breaking and running.”
“Would have thought something would have happened by now,” Tope said, his head tilted up so he could stare at the clouds.
“Waiting for all of us to come out,” Raithe told them. “Trying to lure us away from the safety of our warren. Probably overjoyed that we’re leaving the walls.”
They reached the edge of the crest. Raithe called for the break order, and the column fanned out. Each soldier took his prearranged place in a set of three rows, one behind the other. Raithe stood in the center, Wedon on his right, Malcolm on his left. Tope Highland and Gavin Killian stood side by side, their eldest sons Colin and Hanson with them. Their younger sons were in the second row with Wedon’s boys, Bruce Baker, Gilroy, and Konniger’s brother-in-law, Fig. Bergin and Heath Coswall were in the third row back. All of them stood with shields shining against the morning light, helms high, spears with butts on the ground. They really did look like an army.
Next came the following columns led by Tegan, who broke right, and Harkon, who broke left, forming up in the same fashion as Raithe’s soldiers. Wedon was correct; the Fhrey line was much wider. Last came Moya and her archers, who fell in behind Raithe. Once in position, the world stood still—everything except the sky.
Everyone waited on Raithe. Even the elves waited. His was the final action—his order would call the clash and see hundreds killed. Feeling the weight of that great lever, Raithe looked back at the fortress. The black flags had been exchanged for green. Everything was on him.
Raithe thought of his father.
Maybe he’d misjudged the man. The way Herkimer frequented the High Spear battles, Raithe had always believed that his father and brothers were killers who longed for blood. Raithe had tried his best to avoid becoming like them, and here he was at the center of a line, in the middle of a battle, at the start of a war. Maybe his father hadn’t wanted to be in his battles, either. Maybe he, too, only ever wanted a bit of land in a quiet meadow where his family could live in peace. War had a way of enslaving a man who had a talent for fighting. Battle was what Herkimer was good at, and just like Raithe, that talent gave him a home he’d never sought. Raithe imagined his father had stood many times where he was, in the middle of a line of men facing a wall of spears, and for that one brief instant as he raised his arm, he felt…perhaps not love but…understanding. In that understanding, he found forgiveness. And with the lowering of his arm, the war officially began.
A moment later, Raithe was hit by lightning.
* * *