by Tim Akers
“Hush,” Sorcha said. “I’ve read some very interesting books about this sort of thing. I’m looking forward to plunging you into some treacherous situations… letting you fight your way out.”
“So I guess I don’t need to insist that you not worry about me.”
“Worry about you? Malcolm, I’ve done nothing but worry about you for the last several months. I raised a damned army to ease that worry, and now that I’ve found you, the first thing you do is decline to sit at the back and sip tea, as is fitting for your position. You demand to ride to the front.
“You know you have nothing to prove,” she added.
“Don’t I? I’m the man the church trusted with securing the peace between Adair and Halverdt. We all know how that worked out. I’ve done everything I can to prevent this war, and it’s won me no allies. If there’s no avoiding a war, then I might as well do what I can to win it.”
“You can’t do that from the ease of the commander’s dais? Is that not an appropriate place for you?”
“It has nothing to do with appropriate.”
“That’s good. I’d hate to think that you relegated me to command because it was beneath you.”
“Sorcha! I meant to honor you with command, not insult you.” He stared at her earnestly. “You’ve earned your place at the head of this army. These are your men, your banners, and your honor. Not mine. All I did was ride back from Greenhall.” Malcolm brought his horse even closer and leaned in. “My manner of diplomacy has failed. It’s time for someone else to hold sway in the north, and I’d rather it be you than that lout Rudaine.”
Sorcha glared at him for a handful of heartbeats, then her expression softened. She put a hand on his shoulder.
“Be safe. Fight well. Remember the hallow,” she said softly.
“The hound. The hallow,” he answered. “Sorcha? If things go wrong, please gods have the sense to make a clean escape.”
“Husband,” she said with some amusement, “do you honestly think I would run?”
“No, I suppose I don’t—but I had to ask.” He trotted away, then took his helmet from a squire and started toward the front. Yards away, his wife called to him one more time.
“Win this fight, Malcolm. Bring me the peace you promised.”
“There will be more to this peace than one fight,” he answered, “but I will win it, one way or another.”
“Gods grant that you’re right,” Sorcha said. Then she turned and ascended the dais, to lay aside her place as wife and mother, and take up the mantle of command.
* * *
Malcolm snaked his way down to the Blakley line, greeting the men and women of his levy as he went. They were enthusiastic, excited to see their lord among them, singing praises to Cinder and Strife and other gods. Sorcha had brought nearly five hundred spears and several dozen mounted men-at-arms, along with a good core of knights at their center.
Unlike many of the Tenerran troops, Blakley men dressed and fought in the southern manner, with the foot supporting and positioning the mounted force, setting up a devastating charge that could shatter even the strongest shield-wall—as long as they stayed away from the massed ranks of pikes, or the withering fire of crossbows that shielded the flanks. Or unless the charge balked, or a countercharge met them before they could reform. Or…
Malcolm looked up and down at the other Tenerran forces. MaeHerron’s lines were drawn up to fight in the same manner as the Blakleys, with priests among them, and dirges rising from their signal corps. Rudaine, green-clad and vicious, followed the wilder order of the tribes, light cavalry and throwing spears, ranks of hard men with axes, even a loose scattering of houndsmen with their armored packs riling along the flanks.
Malcolm remembered stories of the old days, when House Blakley would bring more hounds than men to a fight. Legends held that the first of his line, Black Colm and his ilk, actually rode giant hounds into battle. A story, of course, but a sturdy one. He wondered at the change that had overcome his army in those years. His lines resembled those across the valley more than those of his brothers beside him.
As Malcolm mused, the battle started. There was no grand horn or call to fight. The Suhdrin left flank had been creeping toward the lake, a unit of spear acting as protection for another force of crossbowmen. They were trying to establish themselves on a hillock that overlooked one of the fords, an offshoot of the bluffs that dominated the Tallow for most of its length. It would offer a commanding view of the Tenerran forces.
Gray shadows darted among the trees that clothed the Tenerran side of the hill. Suddenly the baying of hounds was joined by the bellowing of men, and then a loose formation of axemen followed the hounds in, a scrum that turned into a skirmish.
Before either side realized it, the fight was truly engaged. Cries arose as the crossbow wielders were cut down before they could mount a defense. As the Suhdrin spearmen fell back, a unit of light cavalry rode out to support their retreat. These strayed too close to the center of the field and met a countercharge from the riders who had been cycling in front of the Tenerran lines. The bloody exchange of steel and hoof drew yet more forces from both sides, and then the space between the armies collapsed.
Finally the call to battle sounded, first from the dais above, and then on down the line as heralds took up the song. The men to either side of Malcolm looked to their commander. The ground before them was clear, but without the usual preparation, the seeding of arrows and sowing of spears. It was the worst possible situation for heavy horse. Malcolm stood in his saddle, raised his lance, then pointed it down the valley.
“You heard the horn,” he yelled. “For the hound! The hallow!” He dropped his lance and hammered down the field like thunder, like lightning, like an avalanche of steel and breaking iron.
22
THE HORSES MOVED like a river broken free from the lake, a flood bursting from the dammed discipline of the battle line, their barding bright in the sun, shields and lances dancing over them like leaves on the water. Banners snapped in the wind, men screamed and arrows fell, the terror of battle lost in the exultation. Malcolm gritted his teeth and committed to the tumble, nothing in his head but the flow of his horse, the weight of his spear. Nothing in his heart but violence.
The green expanse of the field closed around him. The fog mingled with the last smoke from the burned haystacks. He couldn’t hear anything but the rattle of his armor and the hammerfall of his horse’s charge. He knew he was shouting because his throat was raw, but it was lost in the cacophony of a thousand voices, each one screaming and swearing and making promises to the gods.
The distance closed, and there was only violence.
The twin waves of heavy horse crashed into each other, swords and shields and skulls crashing together with a din like heaven’s bell breaking under a god’s hammer. A spear glanced off his shield, its bearer struck from his saddle by one of Malcolm’s companions, and then another, this one snagging on the exposed plate of Malcolm’s pauldron. The metal crumpled around his shoulder, striking him numb, and the force of the blow twisted him sharply in his saddle, squeezing the breath from his lungs and dizzying him.
Malcolm bounced forward on his mount, reeling from the strike, the battle flowing around him while he collected his head. The spear pass was over, and they were thick among the Suhdrins, the fight coming to sword and mace. Everything around him was a fog of banners and steel and screaming men and dying horses. He blocked an attack from one side, sword bouncing off shield once, twice, then the attacker was past and Malcolm never saw his face. The crushed shell of his pauldron pinched into Malcolm’s shoulder. The familiar, warm trickle of blood crawled down his arm. He wheeled his horse, snagging his spear in the ground as he turned, quickly dropping the now useless weapon and drawing his blade.
A swirling mass of armored men surged around him, beating swords against shields, crushing helmets, drawing blood, killing horses, dying with steel in their guts and mud in their teeth. When they fell, it was to
disappear between terrified mounts, screams cut off before they reached the ground. There was no telling who was winning, even in this small part of the killing.
His thoughts were cut down by a hard press of Suhdrin knights to his side. Peering through his visor, Malcolm wasn’t sure which direction he was facing, whether he had pushed beyond the enemy line and was caught now by their reserves, or if his own lines had collapsed, but there were suddenly many more Suhdrin than soldiers of the hound. They came at him with double-hand maces, swinging wide arcs of iron flecked with blood. Their horses were terrified, eyes rolling, jaws speckled with foam.
The knights were in a wedge as blunt as an axe, cutting through a line of Tenerran faithful. Malcolm’s first instinct was to dive aside before they rode him down, but his knees were crushed so tightly against his fellow knights that his horse could have been dead and not fallen. So instead he turned to face the wedge. There was just a moment before they struck, a heartbeat stretched into a dozen, and still they came straight for him.
They were Fabron’s men. The black anvil and red sun on their tabards were surreally clean in the middle of battle, unstained by blood or sweat or the field of mud—as though they had been delivered from the Black Mountain of their master’s domain whole and untouched by the hand of god, placed in the midst of this chaos before the filth of war could reach them. Malcolm had broken bread with Emil Fabron at last Frostnight, swearing a whiskey-oath as though their mothers were sisters, and their children kin.
Emil was at their fore, the open face of his helm revealing teeth white and wild as he screamed toward Malcolm, the black iron of his mace clenched in fists the size of bread loaves. Leading from the front.
Good man, Malcolm thought. Leading as the gods meant lords to lead. He wondered if a flash of recognition crossed Emil’s face in the breaths between blows, if the man knew who he was about to ride down, or if he was lost in the battle’s song.
Fabron struck down the nearest Tenerran knight, his mace punching through the skull like wind through wheat, trampling man and horse under iron hooves, then he surged forward and was at Malcolm’s side. He muscled the mace over his shoulder, keeping the momentum of the swing, raising it over his head like a woodman’s axe and turning his attention to the next target, the next skull to be crushed and heart pulped, the next knight in this endless harvest of heretics and rebels.
In the tiny space cleared by the fallen knight, Malcolm bucked forward, his horse straining through mud and broken bodies. He lay flat against his horse’s neck as Emil’s mace whistled overhead, and then the iron duke was twisting again, drawing the heavy weapon back and over. Malcolm punched with his shield, clapping Emil’s screaming mouth shut and breaking his jaw, then stood in his saddle and struck down, down, down again with his sword. The metal of Emil’s helm bit and broke, spilling blood across his face.
The mace came around, the haft of it crashing into Malcolm’s ribs. Sharp pain popped through his chest, blood dragging through his breath, but the momentum of Emil’s attack was gone. Still, Fabron’s horse pushed forward, along with the rest of the wedge, crowding into Malcolm, sliding him along the edge of their formation. Emil slipped past, but before he left Malcolm’s range, the lord of Houndhallow swung again, dropping shield and safety to grasp his sword in both hands.
He crashed the forte of the blade into the back of Emil’s head and felt metal and bone give way. The man’s head flopped forward, blood vomiting from the ruin of his face. Malcolm drew the length of his sword through the breached neck of Emil’s armor, slicing clean through. The head fell into his lap, the bright white nub of his neck bubbling like a fountain, and then he was past, horse charging forward, limp body bouncing lifelessly in the saddle, and the next Suhdrin knight was in Malcolm’s face.
The battle moved on.
Malcolm was caught in the tide of the Suhdrin charge. There was a moment of wrath among the men of the Black Mountain in the wake of their lord’s violent death, their battle cry mingling with tears of rage, and their attack was full of vengeance. It took all of Malcolm’s strength and sword-sworn skill to batter them away, the impetus of their charge taking them swiftly past as he slid away, and then the wedge was past and the Tenerran mass swallowed them.
Fabron’s charge had been premature, and his men were paying in their blood the price of his poor decision. Alone and surrounded they were cut down, one by one, then in groups, and soon Malcolm sat on his horse in the middle of a moment of peace on the battlefield. He stood in his stirrups, craning his neck to see the rest of the lakeside field.
The banner of the hound fluttered at the center of the battlefield, though the man holding it was not the same knight who had carried it at the start of their charge. The rest of Malcolm’s force swirled around him in a tight knot. A third of their number had gone into the mud, part of the crawling, writhing carpet of fallen knights that covered the ground all around. Riderless horses galloped madly behind the lines.
To either side the battle raged. The Tenerran cavalry carried the center, Suhdrin spear- and bowmen held the right, and the head of the field in the nape of the tiny hillock, where the fight had started, was a swirling mass of hounds and banners and screaming men, the battle lines as murky as whirlpools in a crashing stream, forming and swirling away with each breath. He could not see who held the day among the trees. Malcolm and his men were dangerously far forward in the center of the field. On the opposite side, the Suhdrin lines shifted and massed, preparing a countercharge. The fallen banner of Fabron lay nearby. Malcolm hooked it up and raised it, then struck it in the ground.
“My lord, you’ll give them a rallying point,” one of his men said, and made to push the banner down. Malcolm stopped him.
“He was a good man, and a good friend,” he said. “Sound the withdrawal. Let his kin collect the colors, and his body. If they can find all the pieces.”
“But the field is ours,” the man complained.
“As long as they let us have it. MaeHerron held back and we won’t be able to hold without his pikes. Come on, before they take it from us.”
With a fury of horns, Malcolm formed up his men and did a circling pass around Fabron’s banner before thundering back toward the lake. The Suhdrin bowmen along the right gave a half-hearted cheer and a volley, but the flights fell short. The promised countercharge came, though the riders only traveled far enough to surround Fabron’s grim banner and reclaim it. The duke of the Black Mountain was still on his horse, headless corpse slouched forward, blood streaking through the destrier’s mane so thick the beast looked fey.
“We’ll gather the lines and try again,” Malcolm said to the men who rode beside him. They were watching the Suhdrin countercharge with sullen anger, no doubt counting their dead and what little ground their blood had gained. “Let them crash around us. Taking the field is well and good, but we need footmen to hold it. If we can get MaeHerron…”
A great shattering noise rolled down the valley. Malcolm stopped and twisted in his saddle. The fog along the right flank split open, spilling knights of the line down the field’s length. The swirling confusion of that flank resolved into an armored cavalry charge that threatened to wipe Malcolm and his men off the earth.
“Their reserves!” he cried. “They must have circled behind the foot, formed a new flank in the confusion.” It was impossible to tell their numbers, but it hardly mattered. The ranked spearmen on the left had reformed into an arc that presented shields both to Malcolm and the broader Tenerran line. Malcolm’s men would be crushed between the spearmen and this new charge. He looked back at the Tenerran forces. There was no movement, and they were too far away to run to safety.
“Form on me! Form on the charge!”
“We’ll never make it, my lord!” his sergeant yelled. There was a murmur in the ranks as the men realized their plight.
“Not back, lads.” Malcolm circled his horse a few times, drawing the Blakley knights to his side and settling their lines. The hammering descent of
the Suhdrin forces filled the air and shook the ground. When the wedge of knights was to his liking, Malcolm took the place at the head of the formation. Spear and shield gone, Malcolm waved his sword over his head and pointed forward. He started the charge.
They rode down the field to its center, to the ground they had just surrendered. He thundered past the ruin of Fabron’s charge, sheering away from the Suhdrin attack, ignoring the threatening flank of spearmen to his left, abandoning the safety of his own line. Charging toward the opposite side of the field and the gathered banners of Halverdt and LeGaere, Marchand and Bassion, and above them all the coldly flickering colors of the high inquisitor.
The men hesitated only a heartbeat, then threw themselves into the charge with the wild abandon of the mad and the doomed. They vaulted the bodies at the battle’s center and started up, up, into the jaws of the Suhdrin defenses. The banner of the hound snapped loudly over their heads, rippling in the wind of their passage. A loud, bellowing cheer went up from the Tenerrans far behind them as this small pocket of knights raced toward their deaths and glory.
Malcolm was deaf to it all. He felt suspended in time, with only the horse, the banner, and his men.
The colorful lines of the Suhdrin defenses wavered. They were not prepared for the charge, expecting to watch as Malcolm was run down, shocked to be suddenly setting spears and steadying nerves as this hundred-count of horse and knight barreled toward them. Drums signaled up and down the line, horns and the screaming commands of sergeants and lords, but in the ranks there was doubt. The campaign had been built on stories of fear, stories about the dangers posed by the pagans and their mad gods.
Fear was natural. Fear was Malcolm’s best hope.
As the line approached, Malcolm’s men tightened their wedge. It took only one man on the spear line to fail, one soul to tremble at their approach, one shield to dip and pike to drop, and then his brother beside him, and then the charge would find its heart. But as they charged forward, the spears held. He was down to heartbeats now, a breath and a half before impact. He was screaming.