Markal had cut off the incantation the instant the giant stopped running toward them, and Nathaliey turned toward him in confusion.
“What’s wrong? I’m ready to feed you my power. Say it.”
“It’s a fireball,” he said. “I can’t cast it or I’ll hit the paladins, too.”
She took in Wolfram’s forces, who surrounded the giant and tried to keep it from returning to the barricade, but with little success.
“Why did it stop?” Markal said. “What happened? What changed?”
It was a good question. The giant had been running pell-mell across the meadow, all discipline lost with a crossbow bolt impaling its ear and a paladin clinging to its back. Markal’s fireball would have won the battle; set on fire, the giant would have fled the meadow and left Wolfram’s company free to clear the obstacle and cross the ford. Then suddenly, the giant had pulled up short, as if an even bigger giant had yanked on an invisible rope tied around its waist.
“It’s the enchantment,” she said. “Whatever told it to build the barricade—Bronwyn, probably. Whatever power she had over it still has effect. We need that fireball.”
“Then we have to get in closer.”
“It’s almost back to the riverbank. That puts us back where we started. It’s just going to jump into the water if we set it on fire.”
Markal threw up his hands. “I don’t know . . . do you have a better idea?”
She didn’t, and so they set off after the giant as it battled its way toward the heap of uprooted pine trees. The wind changed, and carried with it a whiff of something foul, like there was a dead animal rotting upstream. Except this was no physical smell, but rather something that made her magical senses recoil in disgust. She searched for the source, and that’s when she saw the marauders emerging from beneath the boughs of the heaped-up pine trees.
Chapter Nineteen
The first part of Captain Wolfram’s attack had gone better than expected. After some initial skirmishing that cost them a horse, a crossbow bolt impaled the giant’s ear, and it fled the barricade of uprooted trees. Wolfram gave chase, and Gregory brought his reserve force thundering to join the battle.
The giant made straight for Markal and Nathaliey, who maintained an easy stance. Nathaliey held out her hands, palm down, while Markal’s lips began to move as he ducked his head in concentration.
Hopefully, they were throwing some real magic into the fight, and not a flash of light or some other gimmick. Either way, the Blackshields had the brute on the run, and it seemed like they’d be able to chase it into the woods long enough to clear the obstacle and cross the ford.
And that was when things went wrong. First, the giant hauled up short, throwing Marissa. It whirled about and clobbered one of the pursuing paladins, knocking him from his horse and crushing his shield arm, and before the injured man could be rescued, the giant hauled him into the sky and slammed him to the ground, killing him with a single blow. The giant stomped back toward the barricade, swinging its cudgel to clear a path.
If Wolfram didn’t do something, they’d be back where they started. He had lifted his sword to shout orders, when Lucas cried a warning from near the barricade.
Wolfram turned to see marauders emerging from beneath the branches of the giant’s barricade like rats boiling out of a hole. They kept crawling out until there were roughly fifteen in all, and an ugly, sneering cry went up from them as their captain took her place at their head.
Bronwyn lifted her sword, and Wolfram felt her power and confidence radiating forth. That gesture had once called paladins to battle; now, it was used to strengthen the enemy.
She met Wolfram’s stare, flashed him a malicious smile, and then her gaze fell to the linen-bound sword strapped to his saddle. Afraid of a trap, he hadn’t wanted to leave Soultrup with the handful of paladins guarding the supplies and spare horses while he led the rest into battle, and now he kicked himself. It had never occurred to him that Bronwyn, with only fifteen marauders at her disposal, would lie in ambush against his sixty-seven. And his forces were mounted, while hers were on foot. Except that Bronwyn had something else under her command: a sixteen-foot-tall giant with a club the size of a tree trunk.
The marauders surged away from the pine tree barricade and charged on foot toward the giant, which came stomping back to meet them, clearing paladins with every swing of its cudgel. The creature was bleeding from its legs and forearms, but it showed no signs of panic. Bronwyn seemed to be controlling it.
A small knot of paladins surrounded Wolfram, and it would have been easy enough to fall back and regroup, rather than be pinned between the giant and the marauders. But he couldn’t let the enemy forces unite, or they’d clear their way to the barricade, and it would be a devil of a time dislodging them.
He raised his sword. “Blackshields, to me!”
Paladins rode in from all sides. Gregory, with his company of reserves, pounded across the meadow from where he’d nearly reached Markal and Nathaliey’s side in the initial charge. As the paladins arrived, they banged shields and roared their defiance.
The giant loomed above Wolfram, close enough to see the blood congealed to its beard from its last meal and smell its odor, something like a mix between a sweating bull and a rotting blanket. Close enough to see its yellow eyes and the boar-like bristles of its eyebrows. Its nostrils flared, and its breath huffed. It lifted its cudgel.
A wall of Gregory’s riders slammed into the giant from behind. Spears thrust at its back, swords raked its legs, slashed at its arms, and stabbed for its belly. The creature stumbled and nearly fell, but its cudgel was already coming around and clearing a path.
Wolfram had no chance to fight the giant, because the first of the marauders charged into him from the rear, led by Bronwyn. A pair dragged a paladin from his saddle and stabbed him repeatedly before he could defend himself. Others hacked and slashed at the horses in an attempt to dislodge riders. The entire company of enemies formed a brutal wedge that forced its way through the paladins to reach Wolfram.
One of them was almost on top of him, a tall gray-skinned fellow with an ugly expression. He held a long sword in one hand, with the stump of his other hand against the hilt for support. It was the man who’d cursed at Wolfram as he fled the standing stones, his hand hacked off in the battle. Wolfram leaned in the saddle and the two of them clashed swords. The flow of battle separated them before either could land a decisive blow.
More Blackshields arrived with every passing second, mounted and disciplined, and the mass of them shortly forced Bronwyn and her company back toward the pine barricade. Wolfram gave orders in a final, desperate attempt to keep the giant separated from the rest, but it was too strong, and they couldn’t keep it pinned. It forced Gregory’s paladins to fall back, then charged at Wolfram’s riders with its cudgel swinging. They could only stand aside as it lumbered through their ranks.
Wolfram reluctantly called for his forces to fall back from the barricade and regroup. They recovered three bodies and several wounded before they retreated into the meadow. Another horse was down, and they had no choice but to abandon it, wounded and struggling to rise.
Three paladins killed and two horses lost, but Bronwyn had suffered her own losses. He counted four marauders down out of sixteen, counting herself. If only they’d taken out the giant. The ground in front of the barricade was already churned up and bloody, and there would be more blood spilled before the battle was won.
He glanced at the meadow to where Markal and Nathaliey remained at the ready, then called in his lieutenants. “Lucas, carry the wounded to the wizards. Gregory, prepare for a full-out assault. Marissa, follow me.” He spotted Henry, who was an agile rider and one of Wolfram’s favorite scouts. “You, too. Come with us.”
The three paladins edged forward to study the enemy, who had taken a defensive posture in front of the barricade. The giant spotted Wolfram and his companions, stomped its feet, waved its cudgel, and bellowed. It was so much bigger and stro
nger than the giant that had caused them such trouble at the ruined bridge on the other side of the mountains that he felt his guts turn cold as he contemplated another fight.
“He’s a brute,” Marissa muttered. “How are we going to do it?”
Without warning, half of the remaining marauders surged out from the rest. Four of them formed a defensive ring in case Wolfram, Marissa, and Henry made a charge, and the other two recovered two of the downed marauders. The rescued pair was hacked up and unable to walk, but alive.
“I took down that tall one myself,” Henry said, a measure of pride in his voice. “He won’t last long.”
The surging marauders fell back against the overturned pine trees, still dragging the wounded, and they disappeared behind a cluster of their comrades. Wolfram was shocked when, moments later, the injured marauders pushed their way clear, shouting for weapons.
“The Harvester take me,” Henry said. “I hit him in the neck. Nearly took his head off, I’d swear to it.”
“Nearly is not good enough,” Wolfram said. “Next time, finish the job.”
“And what about the giant?” Marissa insisted. “Our swords just bounce off its hide.”
Wolfram’s eyes dropped to Soultrup, still bound in linen and strapped to the side of his saddle. What would it be like to carry it into battle? It was a massive blade, but light as a dagger in the hand of its wielder. If anything could cut through the giant’s skin, it was the red sword.
And the moment you draw it, the sword will throw itself into Bronwyn’s hands, and she’ll cut you down.
A rider approached from the main company of paladins. “The sorcerers are ready, Captain.”
“Wizards,” Wolfram corrected. “Not sorcerers. What do they intend to do?”
“They said to assault from the west side of the barricade so they can attack from the east. Otherwise, we’re going to get warm. Once they use their magic, they said we’ll know what to do.”
That sounded like fire. He’d overheard Markal and Nathaliey discussing their collection of magical powers during one of their long marches. It all sounded impressive—fire, rumbling earth, spectral hammers, spells to confuse and conceal, and the like—but the wizards had a more dismal impression of their own abilities. Nathaliey claimed to lack knowledge, and Markal said his command was weak. Perhaps they were downplaying their abilities, comparing themselves to their master, who was apparently a formidable wizard.
As for fire . . . that could work, he decided, looking over the enemy formation. The giant was hairy, with animal skins to set ablaze. A big target, too, impossible to miss. Light the giant up and set it running. Then Wolfram could charge in and kill Bronwyn and the rest. Horses and numbers would carry the day. He led the others back to share information with the rest of his lieutenants.
“Gregory, your forces are the freshest. You’ll lead the charge. Lucas, I want a second company readied. You’ll be the reserve force—plug any gaps in Gregory’s lines.”
“Yes, Captain,” the two men said, and rode off to give orders.
“What about me?” Marissa asked.
“You ride with me. We’ll take the rest of the Blackshields and hunt down the giant once it runs off. If it keeps running, we let it go. If not, it’s our job to stop it from rejoining the fight.”
“That’s more or less what we already tried, only it didn’t work so well.”
“This time it will,” he insisted.
Wolfram gave the signal, and Lucas and Gregory moved their companies together, each roughly fifteen riders, and brought them in a big loop along the riverbank from the west. Bronwyn’s marauders watched warily, and shifted in case they needed to block riders from attempting to enter the water behind the barrier where the road met the ford. But Bronwyn didn’t leave the barricade.
Nevertheless, the enemy’s attention was all fixed to the west, and neither Bronwyn nor her men seemed to notice when the two wizards put their hands palms down and lowered their heads. Wolfram forced himself not to stare.
A glowing sphere of fire formed above Nathaliey’s head and floated toward the heap of uprooted pine trees. It hadn’t traveled ten feet before one of the marauders shouted a warning. The fireball drifted slowly, and Bronwyn seemed to be watching its progress while still keeping an eye on the riders approaching from the west. She had not yet given orders, but had plenty of time to make a careful judgment. Wolfram looked on in frustration.
By the Brothers, can’t you make it move faster?
The ball of fire wobbled and expanded the farther it traveled from the wizards. The two companions had their hands up, and it looked like Markal was pushing the ball with his palms out, while Nathaliey kept her palms facing each other, as if she were squeezing it into shape. Wolfram guessed that they weren’t moving it any faster because they couldn’t without losing control.
Bronwyn sent the giant west against Gregory and Lucas’s threat, while forming the marauders into a line facing the approaching fireball. Once they stood shoulder to shoulder, they lifted their gray cloaks into a single wall. Bronwyn, standing behind them, barked something that Wolfram couldn’t understand, and the cloaks darkened until he had to glance skyward to confirm that a cloud hadn’t passed over the sun.
If any of the paladins had been in position to charge, they might have disrupted the gathering marauders or even attacked the giant while it was alone in an attempt to drive it away from the barricade. But the wizards’ vague instructions hadn’t accounted for this possibility, and it hadn’t occurred to Wolfram, either.
The fireball was approaching roughly ten feet above the ground, high enough that it should have floated over the marauders, but it wobbled as it approached and lost altitude and speed, as if Bronwyn’s magic were sucking it down. Even before it struck, Wolfram knew that the fireball would splash ineffectively against the marauders’ wall of gray cloaks and fizzle.
And then Nathaliey pushed up and to her left. The fireball moved in the direction of the river, and there was no resistance to it there. No, not toward the river so much as toward the giant’s barricade. Their target wasn’t the giant, he realized—it never had been—it was the heaped-up pine trees. Too late, Bronwyn seemed to understand the same thing. She shouted, and the cloak wall shifted.
The fireball struck the pine barricade, flashing into sparks. It gave a sharp smell like burning resin, and the whole thing burst into flames. Within seconds, it was a raging inferno, with fire shooting fifteen feet into the air. The marauders fell back from the conflagration, and the giant bellowed in fear and seemed on the verge of bolting.
Wolfram lifted his sword. “Blackshields! Charge!”
Lucas and Gregory’s riders had been stomping about on the riverbank to the west. At Wolfram’s command, they broke into a gallop, riding straight at the giant. Wolfram brought thirty more paladins across the meadow from the south. He charged toward the marauders retreating from the raging fire as its flames shot ever higher. It was a wall of heat and smoke.
Wolfram slammed into the fleeing marauders, followed by Marissa and several others behind her. A marauder snarled up at him, face scorched and eyebrows burned off. Wolfram swept down with his sword and battered through the man’s feebly raised weapon. He staggered forward, and Marissa struck him hard across the back of the head as he fell.
A marauder came up on Wolfram in the smoke and seized his leg in an attempt to drag him from the saddle. Wolfram smashed the man in the face with his shield, then came around with his sword. Filled with righteous fury, he rained blows, hacking the man in the shoulder, neck, and chest, until he too fell. Other marauders were dying all around him, and the paladins were forcing the survivors back toward the fire.
He spared a glance at Lucas and Gregory, who were struggling to hold back the giant. The creature had already unhorsed two paladins, and it caught a paladin with a full blow across the head with its cudgel. The man slumped, and his horse fled the battlefield, still carrying his limp form in the saddle. Gregory charged in, fearl
ess, and paladins raced to his side, emboldened. The giant flailed about, looking for its escape, hemmed in by the fire at its rear and the attacking cavalry in front.
Bronwyn and several others had somehow broken free and reached the giant. She waved her hands and chanted in a strange tongue as she tried to bring the creature back under control. She met Wolfram’s gaze across the battlefield, and a poisonous look crossed her face—fury and fear jumbled together.
Something flickered, a new emotion. Was that despair? Did some essence of her remain, crying in horror at what she’d become?
Wolfram could only stare. What sorcery held his sister in its grasp? She had become a mangled, tortured version of the proud and honorable paladin she had once been.
He could not let it stand. He must cut her down and release her soul from its tortured existence. Let it be gathered by the Harvester, broken down, and sown into the land to be reborn anew. Not this horrible living death. As if reading his thoughts, Bronwyn threw back her head and screamed in incoherent rage.
He lifted his sword. “Your torment comes to an end, Sister,” he cried. “Blackshields, to me! Cut her down.”
The marauders were almost all dead by now. Only Bronwyn and a handful of her companions remained, fighting alongside the giant in an attempt to break free from the forces strangling their escape. Gregory’s paladins in front, an inferno at their rear. A river on one side, and Wolfram sweeping in from the other.
He reentered the fight. The giant was swinging with the cudgel, knocking aside mounted paladins while stomping at those who’d become unhorsed. The surviving marauders moved to block Wolfram and reached to drag him from the saddle, even as Marissa and others hacked at them to clear a path. He fought his way to Bronwyn’s side, and then his horse stumbled, and he went sprawling.
He’d barely risen to his feet before Bronwyn was on him, a whirlwind of fury as her sword lashed at him again and again. Only the giant’s swinging cudgel, which forced both of them to take evasive action, and the mass of charging paladins on horse kept him from being overwhelmed. Unfortunately, the chaos also pushed him farther away from his sister. He ducked another flailing attack from the giant and fought his way toward her again.
The Black Shield (The Red Sword Book 2) Page 20