Act of Will

SCENE LVII



Desperate Measures

With a shout and a whip crack to the horses, the wagon surged away from the Empire troops behind us. In the back I stumbled and hung on as we picked up speed. On our right sat the raiders, waiting, while on our left the massive banners of Shale grew steadily closer. Between them we went, as fast as the horses would take us, the noise of our heavy wheels filling our ears. The wind stung my eyes and great columns of dust and grit plumed out from the wagon’s sides and rear. A few seconds later came a cry from behind us, and we turned to see our cavalry charging after us, gaining all the time.

Suddenly the raiders responded, recognizing the attack for what it was and turning their horses towards us. There was a moment’s confusion, and then the scarlet wave was united and moving towards us again, kicking their steeds into a fast and heavy charge. We were already too close for them to use their bows, so they lowered their lance tips and aimed them at our hearts. Suddenly I could hear nothing but battle cries and the low, dragging roar of horse hooves on the hard ground.

On the left, the Shale cavalry, the two hundred who would fight from the saddle, broke into a full charge. There was no longer any doubt whose side they were on.

And we were going to get trapped between them and the raiders.

“Pull to the right!” I roared at the boy. “Cut across their front line.”

With a sudden lurch the wagon swept round and across the path of the raiders. Our cavalry escort split, Lisha taking the irregulars with us, Garnet holding the Greycoast cavalry back. The raiders came on.

We scrambled to the opposite side of the wagon on our hands and knees as the floor kicked beneath us. When I stood up the enemy were less than a hundred yards away and closing fast on the wagon’s side.

Wait, I thought. Wait. . .

“Shoot!” I shouted.

I squinted down the grooves of the right-hand crossbow and squeezed the trigger. The bolt appeared in the breast of a raider and threw him backwards and out of the saddle. On either side of me the other crossbows snapped, and I think another rider went down. They came closer, growing huge and distinct in just a few seconds. I shot again, moving so hurriedly and clumsily to the other crossbow that I didn’t even see if I’d hit anything. The others were fumbling for their axes and spears now, waiting for them to get close enough. Twice more I shot into the sea of scarlet and bronze and twice more men fell, only to be replaced by more. They were too close now. It was with something like despair that I picked up my shield and drew my broadsword.

Then they were upon us, breaking against the half side of the open wagon like the immense, curling head of a wave hurling itself down onto an outcrop of rock. A lance tip stuck hard into the wagon timbers, cracking them apart with the force of the charge. I stepped back, horrified. The crossbowman at the front died instantly, thrust through with a lance. I threw myself forward and hacked at the raider’s horse, but my blade slid off its leather barding. One of the Greycoast soldiers raised his spear like a javelin and pitched it into the throat of a horseman. The blood gushed down his breastplate and he lolled senseless from the saddle. As the spearman reached out to drag his weapon from the corpse, he was struck down by a lunge from another raider, an officer with a lateral crest across his faceless helm.

With a cry of outrage I attacked, bashing his lance aside with my shield and bringing my sword down hard across his head. The sound of battle was loud in my ears and I struck again, lashing out senselessly as the blade glanced off the hard bronze. Then, as he tried to turn his lance on me, he shifted and leaned to one side. My sword came down hard across his shoulder blade and I felt the edge bite through muscle and bone. This time there was no horror, only exultation, and I struck twice more before he fell.

A change came over the enemy. For a second they faltered at the loss of their officer, and it was in that second that Garnet brought his cavalry hard into their flank. Four or five of them went down before they knew where the attack was coming from, and on the other side of the wagon, the village fighters traded blows with an equally startled wing of the enemy. I don’t think it had occurred to them that we would actually attack with so sorry a force.

The surprise didn’t last. A moment later we were unable to move. One of the horses fastened to the wagon was dead. The boy cut it free, but we would be significantly slowed. The other Greycoast regular had received a lance tip in his leg and could do little more than defend himself with his oblong shield. The crossbow woman had died protecting the rear of the wagon with a wood ax. I saw her land several blows before she fell, and even after she was hit and dying she heaved her ax at her assailant and struck his thigh. They went down together. The splintered wagon was splashed all over with blood. All around me came the clash of weapons and the roar of voices meshed together in rage and defiance and pain.

When the charge began I saw Garnet briefly on the stamping and tossing warhorse, his ax high above his horned head. I had seen him bring it down hard, but after that he was swallowed by the chaos of the struggle and I couldn’t say if he was alive or dead. I hadn’t seen Lisha since we clashed with the raiders and I only knew that several of the villagers’ horses had veered off free and riderless. With sudden, blinding conviction I saw that we could not survive. It was all I could do to keep my sword and shield tightly in my hands as I looked about me and saw only defeat.

The raiders boiled around our battered wooden platform, lunging with their lances, and all we could do was parry desperately with our shields and fall back to the opposite side of the wagon. I was pinned there, fending off the deadly lance tips with broad swings of my sword. My arms were shaking with exertion and frustrated rage. Then, as I looked for the black pennants of the Shale cavalry that was to be our utter destruction, I caught the green and brass of the Verneytha horsemen as they slammed into the back of the raiders.

It took a moment for the enemy to realize what had happened, and several of them were unhorsed by opportunist spear lunges as they twisted in their saddles to look behind them. One tore the helm from his head, as if unable to see properly, as he tried to face Mithos and his men. They were hemmed in and under attack from all sides. In the center of their force were raiders pressed together by their own horsemen, unable to push through to the enemy and fight. Horses reared in confusion, and at least one raider was thrown and trampled in the press. Before they could turn to fight the Verneytha cavalry, many had been thrust through by the green-pennanted spears.

Mithos had split his force, half of them assaulting the rear of the raiders, the other hundred forming a line facing the Shale cavalry, whose advance had already slowed. The raiders were trying to pull out, pushing hard through the thin wedge of villagers, swerving towards the citadel as they wrenched themselves free. By the time the raiders had freed themselves completely, pulling away from us and the Shale army, they must have lost sixty men and horses. Something like a hundred remained.

A roar of triumph went up from our infantry forces at this temporary respite. The Shale cavalry had slowed to nothing, but they were still a long way from where their infantry had dismounted. They stood uncertainly in their dark scale armor and black dragon-motif cloaks, trying to gauge what had happened.

Mithos appeared at the head of the Verneytha cavalry. His helm with its wire-wound dragon crest and fearsome mask was tipped back from his face. He found Garnet returning with his men, blood-streaked but exuberant, and called out to him, “Attack the Shale cavalry. Chase them to their lines, and watch for the raiders at our backs. Charge!”

As he bellowed that last word he pulled his helm down over his face and turned his steed. With a cry that rang from our force, the horsemen turned and followed. The hundred Verneytha horses that had stood between Shale and the raiders formed the first wave; the other hundred, augmented by the Hopetown garrison and the villagers, made a less ordered second. Right at the front, her sword aloft, was Renthrette.

I stood atop our crippled wagon and watched the Shale cavalry hesitate. They began to move forward, but the sight of our men crashing towards them broke their spirit. Officers shouted and the ordered ranks broke. Some met our charge head-on, some waited, and others fled back towards their infantry, our riders at their heels. Less than half of Shale’s renowned cavalry made it back alive.

To the north, the remaining raiders watched us as we regrouped. They had started to attack from behind, but the Shale line had broken so suddenly that they had pulled back.

“Where are the others?” said the teenager, whose face was streaked with blood. “The ones in white.”

I turned and squinted back to where they had been, but there was no sign of them. They had gone.

“There!” said the last of our blue-caped spearmen.

Out of the thin and blowing mist, the Empire troops appeared, right alongside their brother raiders only a few hundred yards away. We had kept the red force from joining with the black, but this was just as bad.

Orgos and Duke Raymon had brought their two companies together and marched them towards the center of the plain, where we might keep a block between the raiders and the rest of the Shale force. We set the wagon trundling towards them and the brief security they offered.

“Will,” called Lisha, “over here.”

I walked across, glad to leave the frightened soldiers to their own thoughts. A handful of women had spilled out of the citadel and one of them began to wail high and long. I saw her bent over one of the bodies, her face twisted and disfigured with grief and her cry floating through the air. I looked away quickly and tried to shut the sound out, but another voice began, joining her in abrasive harmony. The soldiers couldn’t bear it. A ripple of unease was coursing up and down their ranks, a ripple you could see. I turned my back on the mourning women, slowly walking to where Lisha stood in front of the Greycoast infantry lines with the duke and the rest of the party.

“Now what do we do?” Garnet asked wearily.

“We weaken them some more,” said Lisha. “Mithos, the Verneytha cavalry are fast. Can you get them close enough to throw their javelins?”

Mithos shook his head. “Only if you can keep Shale’s archers focused elsewhere.”

“We need a diversion,” said Lisha.

Orgos nodded. “You’ll get it,” he said.