Yet Azaran kept running and no archers stayed behind to slow the enemy. Speed was the only thing that mattered at that moment. He kept on going, and despite the grim circumstances a smile crossed his face. Gwindec was right, he was enjoying this.
The closer you are to death, said the silent passenger, the more you appreciate your life.
"Welcome back," Azaran said, running through the trees and laughing. Death was coming up behind him and he never felt more alive. The blood rushing through his veins, pounding in his chest, every breath sharper, every shape brighter in his eyes.
"This...is...fun!" he gasped, catching up with the Iturei. Those who heard this looked back with shock, wondering what sort of madman they'd been saddled with.
They burst out of the trees and into the Greeting Glade, bright sunlight replacing dappled shadow. The Iturei kept going, racing across the field, past the Stone of the Ancestor and disappearing into the trees on the other side. Gwindec followed after, but halted by the stone, bending over and gasping for air. Eburrean warriors entered the glade from the left, armored in battered chain mail, clutching swords and shields. One of them carried an extra set under his arm, which he passed to Gwindec, helping his leader put the gear on. Segovac followed after them, looking awkward in a borrowed set of Iturai armor, made of wooden slats reinforced with iron strips that wrapped about his torso and limbs, giving him the appearance of a barrel that sprouted legs and decided to go for a walk.
"You look ridiculous," said Gwindec, catching his breath.
"How I look is nothing compared to how I feel," came the Rhennari's answer. "But if it keeps me alive, it is a small price to pay."
Azaran trotted towards them. "Quickly now," he said. "They are right behind us...."
"A moment. “Gwindec pulled a padded shift over his head, followed by the chain mail. One of his men looped a belt about his waist, cinching it right. A conical helm was placed on his head, Gwindec adjusting the latter so that it sat firmly on his head, all the while keeping an eye on the treeline. "Form up!" he commanded as the sound of pursuit crossed the open glade. The two hundred men, the last remnant of the army that defied the King a year ago, formed into two lines, shoulder to shoulder and shield to shield, clutching swords or spears, waiting for the attack to come. Azaran stood to the left, next to Gwindec. He alone wore no armor, clad only in a linen shirt, trousers and boots. He carried the same sword brought from Tereg, an old weapon but well-maintained and sharp. "Remember," said. "No matter happens, hold your ground and do not advance."
"No need to remind me," said Gwindec. "But if we die, know I'll be haunting you in the afterlife about it."
"Then I best not die," said Azaran. "One Eburrean complainer is all I can stand in any life."
"I resent that!" Segovac called out from his place in the line.
Movement on the northern edge of the glade. The first of the mercenaries emerged, along with the King on horseback. "Form up!" he bellowed, pulling the sword at his side. Gwindec's men remained where they were, as the Hawks of Bronze formed into three companies a thousand men strong, filling the Greeting Glade from one end to the other. The Ghelenai appeared behind them, cloaked in shadow, while the Eburreans remained in the trees as a reserve.
Gwindec's men looked on the massive numbers arrayed against them with alarm. "So many," said one. "Ten of them for every one of ours!"
"More than that," said Azaran. "Pay it no mind."
The men held their ground, for there was nowhere else for them to go. One of them cleared his throat. "Holy sir," said one, addressing Segovac. "Perhaps a blessing?"
Segovac looked at the man. "Saerec sees you, warrior," was his answer. "That will be enough. Fight well."
The Hawks of Bronze were well drilled - it only took moment before they were in formation. They laughed at the pitifully small force arrayed against them and bloodcurdling insults and threats carried across the glade.
"Time to die, children! I'll wear your flayed skin as a coat!"
"Run now, you bastards! Or I'll shove this sword up your ass so hard your mother will wonder who's buggering her!"
"I'll take your heads! I'll take your hands! I'll feed you your own guts before I kill you!"
"Rude lot," Azaran said frowning with disapproval. "They will learn manners!"
The King rode forward. "You fools!" he shouted. "Bastard traitors all! Your names will be stricken from memory! When the Aranacs speak of you, they will say you died a traitor's death! There will be no mercy, there will be no surrender! No death for you on a field of honor! You will burn, yes, you will burn now!"
The Ghelenai came out, moving between the mercenaries. The Hawks pulled back slightly as the witches passed - even they feared the black knives.
"Stand your ground," Azaran called. "Let them approach."
Gwindec's men did as asked, though they watched the approach of the witches with barely hidden trepidation. Twenty of the women rode out, halting some distance beyond the front ranks of the Hawks. Black cloaks shifted, driven by some breeze no living thing on the field could sense. The faces beneath the hoods were cruel, arrogant with power and the certainly that no force on the world magical or mundane could resist. The black knives were drawn from their sheaths and raised high, pointed to the heavens, stabbing up at the face of the Mansion as if a challenge to nature itself.
The sky darkened. Clouds formed above, appeared out of nowhere, turning the glade from sunlight to shadow within moments. Thunder sounded, lightening flashed, streaking down from the heavens to connect with the upthrust daggers. The blades glowed with a reddish white light, illuminating the faces of their wielders and giving them something of a hellish aspect.
"Die!" screeched a Ghelenai, pointing at finger at the rebels. A bolt shot out from her finger, slamming into the turf before Gwindec's men and blasting a shallow hole.
"Die!" screamed another, sending out another bolt that sizzled through the air, passing over the heads of the rebels and striking a tree on the edge of the glade, shattering the wood as though it were glass.
"DIE!" shouted all the Ghelenai and twenty bolts of lighting shot out, enough power to kill every man on the other side of the field twice...only to slam into a glowing green shield of light that appeared before the men. A great flash of light filled the glade, causing every man and woman to avert their eyes. When they looked back, the shield remained, a shimmering wall of green energy, rising up from the ground and curving back over the heads of the rebels.
A face appeared in the center of the shield, the Green Ancestor. She looked down on the Ghelenai, ghostly eyes filled with outrage and contempt. Fools! she declared in a voice all heard in their heads. Blasphemers and defilers! You have no power here! Begone and trouble me no more!
The words rang in every skull like a hammer blow. The lightening vanished, as did the clouds, dissipating in the sky in the space of two heartbeats, the bright summer sun returning. The Ghelenai lowered their knives, confusion on their faces. One of them raised the blade again defiantly, but nothing happened. A pair of crows launched themselves from the treeline, flying over the witches and cawing mockingly.
Begone! the Green Ancestor thundered again. The horses of the Ghelenai responded, turning about and galloping back the way they came, ignoring the attempts of their riders to regain control.
The Green Ancestor vanished, the glow of her eyes leaving an afterimage in the air that endured for a long moment. Gwindec stepped out from the front rank of his men. "Is that it?" he shouted across the field. "Or do you let the witches do your fighting, Uncle?"
Ganascorec was red with rage. "Hawks of Bronze!" he shouted. "Bring me their heads!"
If the mercenaries were shaken by the appearance of the Green Ancestor, they did not let it show. Veterans of countless battlefields and campaigns, it took more than a few glowing lights to break their will. Orders bawled out across both companies, and the men began their advance. Bronze hawk standards rose up, light rippled off sword blades and ax heads. Every
man among them carried weapons of his own choosing, and was rightly reckoned a master in their use. But years of campaigning together had given them a strong sense of camaraderie, and the prospect of violence was enough to get them moving. With a shout they crossed the distance, three thousand pairs of feet slamming into the ground, moving first at a fast walk, then at a trot. When they reached the halfway point in the glade they broke into a run, howling a loud cry very much like their name sake, rushing across the field in loose order.
"Wait for it!" Azaran called out. "Wait..."
Grass was trampled flat and churned into mud. Swords, axes, spears and other exotic weapons that defied description were raised, ready to chop down the moment they slammed into the shield line, moving at such speed that they might well overrun the rebels through sheer momentum alone.
"Hold!" Azaran yelled, not daring to look back for signs of wavering.
If anything they seemed to pick up speed, screeching and yelling, faces alight with joy of the blood and killing to come. Greed brought these men to Eburrea, the gold and loot dispensed by their paymaster, but violence was why they stayed. The battlefield and massacre was to these men what the field was to the farmer or the forge to the blacksmith, the place of their life's work, where they found meaning and purpose. Where most men sought to create, they only wanted to destroy. To kill, to murder, to cut down the strong and weak alike. Of such men were the Hawks of Bronze made, to them the failure of the witches to cleanse the field was a reason to rejoice.
"Hold!" Azaran shouted one last time. "Hold fast!"
The Hawks closed in for the kill. Yet so focused were they on the killing to come, that they failed to notice a slight difference in the ground ahead of them, fifty feet before the ranks of the rebels. The green grass of the glade appeared to be the same at first glance, but a closer look would have shown faint lines cut through it, as if someone had taken a knife and cut a grid through the sod. Another look would have shown places where the ground seemed to sag a bit. Yet the Hawks were no mood to look, at the moment the ground was mere an obstacle lying between them and their foe, to be crossed as swiftly as possible.
They reached the area in question. And then everything changed.
The front ranks collapsed as their feet punched through the ground, falling into a long, deep trench cut into the ground and hidden until this moment by pieces of cut turf laid over a frame of woven twigs. Sharpened wooden stakes lined the bottom, on which they fell, impaling their bodies and ripping open limbs. Battle cries turned to shrieks of pain. The men coming up behind tried to stop, but were crashed into by the men coming after them and more than a few were knocked into the trench on top of those who went in first.
The trench did not stretch unbroken across the glade. In the center was a gap of open ground perhaps ten yards across, through which the Hawks were able to move. The formation quickly became bottlenecked here, the men flowing towards it, avoiding the trench and its killing stakes, even as their comrades who fell in cried out in agony. Those who made it through the gap then raised their sword and shields as Gwindec's men attacked.
"At them!" Azaran shouted, raising his sword. He charged across the field, the shield lines coming after him, bellowing the ancient war cry of the Aranac clan. Azaran quickly pulled ahead, hurling himself into the mass of mercenaries funneled through the gap. He battered aside a sword stroke from a man whose face seemed to consist of a mass of scars and buried his blade in the fellows neck, stepping aside as another stabbed at him and grabbing that fellows arm with his free hand. His body twisted slightly, pulling the blade from the throat of the first and breaking the arm of the second. He let both fall and all but danced into the ranks of the Hawks of Bronze, scooping up a discarded sword with his free hand and attacking left and right.
Time seemed to slow, as it always did for him in combat. He struck left and right, the runes branded into his flesh warm, his body filled with energy. The faces of the enemy...not really faces anymore, more like flesh colored blurs with smudges for eyes and mouths, there to be struck down. They howled with bloodlust and fear, but he felt neither. Instead he felt calm, almost serene, finding in the chaos and violence a sense of equilibrium. They seemed to move slowly, as far as he was concerned, every blow a half second to slow, every thrust sidestepped moments before it could have connected. No fear, no doubt, it was a dance, every step seen in advance, finding a perfect order in the madness.
He sense more than heard the impact as the shield line smashed into the mercenaries, Gwindec's men finally catching up to him. A swift glance back would show them at work, pressing against the narrow line of Hawks funneled through the gap, the spears jabbing at faces and groins, swords and axes rattling off their shields. The enemy was pressed so tight that they could not easily strike back and many fell into the trench to join their comrades.
Yet the Hawks of Bronze did not break. Those coming up from behind halted before the trench. They saw their comrades fall in, heard the screams, saw the toll in blood being paid by those who made their way through the gap. They looked at the trench, which was perhaps ten feet in width. Several of them back up, then bolted forward, launching themselves off the edge of the trench and into the air. One misjudged the distance and missed the other side by a good foot, falling to his death on the spikes below. The second and third made the distance, drawing their blades and attacking the left flank of the rebels. Other Hawks on the far side of the trench were encouraged by their example and ran forward, leaping into the air. One fellow, lighter than the others, seemed to make the jump with ease, arcing high above the spikes with enough momentum to land far beyond the edge of the trench.
Until an arrow streaked out from the northern edge of the forest, spiking him through the belly. He hit the edge of the pit with a scream and fell down. His comrades fell beside him, cut down by the storm of arrows coming out from the trees. Iturai warriors emerged, bearing long bows of ash and birch, moving in loose order and keeping up a constant barrage. Their arrows were aimed towards the mercenaries - not one shaft went towards the Eburrean reserves waiting just beyond the tree line.
Now the Hawks were thrown into confusion. Their right flank turned, raising shield or ducking down behind those who possessed them. Men dropped where they stood, even as their commanders bawled out orders to reform the lines. A great shout was raised, and more Iturai emerged from the trees, clad in their peculiar wooden armor and armed with long-handled hatchets and daggers. Gwindec and his men gave a shout of their own and redoubled their efforts, pushing the enemy back, knocking more of them into the trench, though by this point so many bodies filled it that those who now fell in had little more than the breath knocked out of them.
And Azaran continued on his path, his serenity reaching a level that was almost trance-like. You are a weapon. It was his voice that said this as much as it was Tarazal's. This is is my purpose...this is your purpose...
To end a life is to destroy the world. The Silent Passenger spoke in response. But this time Azaran paid it no mind. He kept on going, striking left and right, dancing through the battle, moving this way and that, knowing that if need be he could continue like this forever, dancing with death until the end of time.
"Where did they come from?" the King shouted, waving at the oncoming Iturai. "Damn this incompetence! Stay your ground Hawks, that's what you are paid for! Why did I leave the maestarcas behind, damn those fools..."
Nerazag watched the King rage, concern growing on his face with each word that carried over the field. "This is bad," he said. He glanced back at the Eburreans waiting in the trees. They were watching the King as well. What he saw on their faces was troubling in the extreme.
"He must send in the reserves," said Tarazal. "His men are being slaughtered out there. Honored Nerazag, have him send in the Eburreans, or the day is lost..."
"No." Nerazag shook his head. "The day is already lost."
"What?" asked Tarzal with shock.
"Cowards!" screamed the King. "Ingrates!
Bastard spawn of pigs and owls..." After that his words turned incoherent and foam dribbled from his mouth.
"Look at him!" Nerazag said. "If I use the Bracelet of Influence, it might shatter his mind in his current state! He's on the edge of madness as it is! And look at those Eburreans. If he gave the order now, there is a chance they will not hear it."
Tarazal glanced back. He saw the doubt on their faces, the wavering in their eyes. He heard the movement at the back of their ranks, as men turned away from the glade and went back the way they came, leaving the Hawks - whom they loved not - to their fate.
"Savages," he growled. "They lack discipline."
"We must get the King off the field," said Nerazag. "Now! Follow me!"
Both men galloped into the glade. Hawks of Bronze ran past them, headed the other way, fleeing in ones and twos, only moments from breaking in their entirety. They pulled up beside Ganascorec, who was ranting like a madman, waving his sword back and forth and nearly decapitating his mount in the process.
"Great King!" Nerazag shouted. "You must withdraw!"
"Never!" Ganascorec screamed. "Never! Never! I have never known defeat! I will die here, we will all die here..."
"Great King..."
"Join me!" Ganscorec grabbed the bride of Nerazag's horse. "We die together! We die together! We take their souls to hell with us..." The madness in his eyes was beyond reason.
Nerazag did not hesitate. He touched the silver bracelet on his wrist. The effect was immediate - Ganscorec slumped in his saddle, the madness replaced by confusion. "Uh...." he droned, drool dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
Shadow of the Ghost Bear (The Tale of Azaran Book 2) Page 14