17878265

by David

Marblin made to draw away, but Loric squeezed his hand to hold him. “Thee as well, friend of friends,” Loric answered, at last releasing the old Moonwatcher. He grinned as he added,

  “Farewell and good hunting to you. May the moon never sleep.”

  “May the moon never sleep,” Marblin repeated weakly. With that said, he hastened away to rejoin his company on the far flank.

  The Army of Durbansdan was soon in order. Silence fell over both hosts. Durbansdanian delegates went forward to parley with Turtioc’s clan chiefs. The terms were simple. Garrick demanded that his adversary yield his claim to the throne of Beledon and denounce the practice of dragon worship. In exchange, the usurper was to retain his rule over Nindronburg, bearing the title of Lord Turtioc. He would have honors among the rightful king’s noblemen. If he refused, Garrick would have no choice but to make war against him.

  Everyone waited on sword’s edge while delegates delivered the offer. Those riders cantered down to the fords at an agonizingly slow pace. Over nine thousand men held their collective breath as each leader’s list of demands was announced to envoys of the opposing side. The messengers swiftly wheeled about and returned to their respective lords. All terms had been rejected.

  Aldric hastily called out the order, and horns bellowed the advance. Several companies went forward afoot, while the Lord of Egolstadt held the greater portion of his men in reserve. Those who waited were mounted lancers.

  Loric squeaked, “My lord, I do not understand the logic in this seeming madness.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My lord, I only wonder why you send but a handful of your soldiers to their deaths at the riverbank.”

  Aldric chuckled. “You are a bright lad. Observe, and you will understand. If you still have questions after you witness the action firsthand, I will gladly explain, so you will learn.”

  Loric wanted a clear answer. “My lord-”

  “Be still and do as I have bidden you to do.”

  Loric obediently held his peace and watched in somber silence as the green-clad men

  descended to the shallows with fierce battle cries on their lips. Turtioc’s hordes raced toward them, screaming like savages they looked to be in their hide armor and patched fur coats. Two forces collided on the near bank in a sea of turmoil and confusion. Loric had difficulty discerning friend from foe.

  Turtioc’s three hundred vastly outnumbered Aldric’s hundred Men of Egolstadt, and the former soon had the better of the fight. The smaller force withdrew, at first falling back in an ordered retreat that quickly turned into a disordered exodus out of the fray. Loric was horrified to see that fleeing soldiers sometimes tried to help their countrymen, but then abandoned them in their own desperate plights. He felt sick. As a witness to such cowardice, he resolved not to be one of the wounded warriors who needed assistance. Neither would he be counted among those who refused to give it.

  Loric expelled his sickness--not as vomit, but as an exultant shout--when Aldric unveiled his scheme by loosing two-thirds of his remaining strength in a full charge down the slope. The riders passed by their routed brethren in blinding fury. They lowered their lances in unison. Then the victorious roar of the barbarian horde transformed into woeful individual cries of pain, terror and dismay.

  Many of Turtioc’s men had crossed the river in their bloodlust, but few returned to their countrymen to tell of the slaughter that befell them there. A unified shout arose from Aldric’s men as the charging riders plunged into disordered ranks of helpless Nindronburgers. Lances bent to the breaking point and some snapped. Barbarians on both banks cried in anguish. Those on the east side knew their kinsmen were damned and those on the western shore knew they were doomed to fall. The few who managed to escape the lance fell to the sword.

  Even as attacking horsemen lowered sharp points of weapons toward targets, Aldric rallied those routed footmen he had used as bait. He was never idle during the fight, choosing instead to ready this company or adjust that one, before he set his tangled knot of men back in fighting formation. At Aldric’s command, the bow bent and the retreat sounded. Mounted warriors circled around and returned to their jubilant countrymen, having but scarcely disengaged when a hail of arrows fell amidst the fleeing remnant of routed Nindronburgers. Additional shouts and screams followed, and the number of slain multiplied. Less than a score of dragon worshippers escaped into the waters of Moon River.

  Aldric sent more foot soldiers down the embankment to meet Turtioc’s men. Again,

  opposing forces collided and intertwined with one another. As before, Nindronburgers gained the advantage, but this time they did not fully commit to pursuit across the river. Nevertheless, Aldric sent the horse hard upon the heels of his footmen to ensure the demise of those enemy units.

  Even as Turtioc’s men began their tentative withdrawal, those horsemen pressed in to attack them. The King of Nindronburg countered by having his archers loose upon those tall mounted targets, throwing horses and riders into confusion. Several bands of barbarian axe men simultaneously forded Moon River to engage and tie up those horsemen. Their success was turning the battle with each horse hacked at fetlock.

  Aldric sent the remainder of his horsemen, except for his personal escort and Loric,

  thundering down the hillside. Their cries filled the air as they closed upon their chosen marks.

  Clash and clang, whinny and shout rose from the field, as their lances found flesh and shield, and the spears of their opponents found horse and rider. There followed a great deal of jostling about below. Loric watched with rising anxiety as Nindronburgers suffered less damage from this mounted attack than they had endured on the previous charge.

  When Loric turned to ask his liege if all was going as planned, he spotted several companies of Nindronburg Horsemen racing toward their flank.

  “My lord!” he shouted, pointing toward their exposed position.

  Aldric turned to see the cause of Loric’s alarm. With an expletive and a shout, he ordered his escort, “Charge!”

  Before Loric could consider what was happening, he was hugging Sunset’s neck, as the red stallion surged forward amongst other horses. They galloped across the muddy plain with noise like rolling thunder. Loric witnessed the initial onslaught of those enemy horsemen ahead, as they struck the Riders of Egolstadt with distressing impact. Egolstadters reeled from the fury of the enemy charge. Dozens were slaughtered, helpless to fend off this new horde a-horse. Scores of survivors broke and ran.

  Aldric brought new hope and courage to his faltering men, as he dashed amidst them with a war cry on his lips. The Men of Egolstadt let loose ferocious roars upon seeing that their liege lord had come to rescue them. Aldric’s banner whipped defiantly in the breeze as he rode, with the Emerald Spires looking as unyielding as the wall of men who called those spires home. Loric suppressed his weightless stomach, drew a breath and seized up a lost lance that stood embedded in the earth. Sunset never broke stride. Upon Aldric’s order, the son of Palendar lowered his newfound weapon, until it was skimming along parallel with the ground. Sunset bore Loric up to his enemy....

  The lance ripped from Loric’s grasp and a shrill whinny pierced his ears. At the same moment, a deadly enemy lance point came into view. Loric brought his shield up to parry the attack, but it struck him firmly upon his shoulder. He was unseated from his horse, hanging suspended above the ground for what seemed like an eternity.... before he crashed. Luckily, the steely point hit him at a high angle, so it only tore his cloak and surcoat, scraped at his chain links and slid off, rather than piercing him through.

  Regardless of the jarring he received, Loric willed himself back to his feet. A whirling mass of men and horses churned about him. He only had time enough to recognize his foes by their intentions. Loric’s nearest enemy charged him with a guttural yell. The cry died in the barbarian’s throat, as the son of Palendar turned the incoming blade aside with the Sword of Logant, which he then drove into the man’s neck.

  Loric dared
not search for friends. Enemies were all around him. One after another, they challenged him. Each time they met a fate similar to their friend with severed larynx. The panicked squire laid about him on all sides, until his last threatening enemy fell.

  Loric stopped to take stock of the melee around him. He caught a glimpse of Aldric. The Lord of Egolstadt was fighting off two assailants, so Loric rushed to his aid.

  The squire dispatched one of those foes by cleaving his leg to down him, and thrusting his sword through his chest to finish him. Aldric bashed the other man with his shield and used his sword to separate his head from his shoulders. He thanked Loric with a nod and whistled for Snowstorm. When the horse jogged up, its coat resembled that of Sunset, who cantered up beside them for comparison’s sake. Both animals looked as though they had bathed in blood.

  Loric climbed astride his steed and cast about to gain better understanding of the

  confrontation. Both armies were regrouping. They were like two big cats gathering themselves to pounce on one another with greater ferocity than they had shown in their first engagement.

  Neither force had wholly formed itself into units when more shouting rang out from the north.

  Nindronburg footmen had crossed over eastward, approached unnoticed and now rushed in to attack.

  Lord Aldric bellowed, “To me, Men of Egolstadt! To me! We must stand firm.”

  The Nindronburgers paid little heed to order, because numbers were now heavily in their favor. They shouted as they rushed into the fray once more. A large group of fresh soldiers was pressing in to bolster their ranks.

  “To me!” Aldric repeated above the din. “The day might still be won. To me!”

  Men responded to their lord’s call, at once turning to face their enemies. Grim determination swelled to fill the void left by shrinking hopes. Egolstadters met the disordered Nindronburgers with tremendous success. Even when those rested, well-ordered companies drove into their midst, they continued to put up stout resistance. The numerical advantage Turtioc’s men held over them was prodigious, so that Aldric made himself part of the first defensive line. Loric frantically fought off assailants, knowing that each stroke he made had to harvest blood or it would be his last.

  “To me!” Aldric’s great voice cried again. “We are holding. They must not-”

  At that moment, Aldric missed a stroke and exposed himself. The enemy footman followed through with a hard shot across his helm. Clank! It struck the Lord of Egolstadt full on and he toppled from his saddle.

  The sands of time stalled for Loric. In the fury of battle, he had cast off his haunting dreams, his visions. Now, though, the nightmare was reality. “No!” he yelled. Similar cries of despair and dismay rose all about him.

  Loric put his opponent down with a brutal pommel strike to his face and raced to Aldric’s side in fury. The man who had struck the significant blow was poised to hack the fallen warlord, but the Sword of Logant plunged into his heart with vengeance. All around Loric, men were breaking and running, hopeless and defeated. When he finally noticed that the Army of Egolstadt was melting away in the heat of battle, he thought surely his end had come upon him.

  His thoughts unexpectedly turned to Avalana, the lady he loved, the princess he could not have. Loric had thought to see her again, but the Fates had thwarted his plans to rejoin her at Moonriver Castle. Hope died within him, until a faint tickle at his arm reminded him of his parting words with Avalana.

  Loric ignored the distraction of the bracelet and pushed aside his thoughts of the princess.

  This is no time to think about Avalana, even if she is dear to me, he thought bitterly. Hope bloomed inside his heart. Is it?

  Loric wheeled Sunset about and retreated into the midst of Aldric’s routed men. “Fight not for your lives!” he shouted. “Think of your families,” he commanded them. He appealed to their pride, assuring them, “For the shame of your actions, your wives will bed down with other men.

  For your cowardice, your sons will deny you are their fathers. If that does not give you reason to stand against the dragon-worshipping hordes, think how these beasts will molest your daughters when they come with war to Durbansdan and Egolstadt.” The thought of any man who could not find his backbone after hearing Loric’s harsh challenges disgusted him. To those craven dogs, he said, “If you remain unconvinced to do your duty, run and never return to this army. You are of no use to your kingdom.” He spun about to face his enemies once more, declaring loudly, “Only we few stand between these barbarians and our loved ones. For my part, I will fight!” Loric roared. “I need bold men to stand with me. Who is with me?”

  The response to Loric’s query amazed him, as a loud chorus of voices bellowed, “I am!” To raise such a raucous, the surviving Egolstadters had answered to a man. Knowing that

  emboldened Loric to lead them on a headlong charge back into the fray. The mighty clash behind him spoke of many reckless followers, stirred to passionate fury by his words.

  Loric’s sudden madness, and the rage of those with him, caught jubilant Nindronburgers by surprise. The self-proclaimed victors were put to flight, as Men of Egolstadt assailed them in full fury. The tide was turning once more and the barbarian Nindronburgers were fast drowning beneath waves of destruction that were rolling up over them for a heavy downward crash.

  Loric sensed that his foes were giving ground before him, so he pressed them. “Make them run!” he bellowed. “Drive them on! Give them pain for pain: steel for steel!”

  Loric and his frenzied Egolstadters pursued the barbarians across the fords, where they smashed into Turtioc’s weakened flank. Ox horns bellowed at the centerline, from whence Lord Garrick saw their crossing and committed the bulk of his strength to strike at his adversary’s middle. With his right flank giving way and Garrick’s ordered masses driving into his center to prevent him from reinforcing his shattered wing, Turtioc had no wish to see the end of the fight.

  Durbansdanian companies threatened to hack through stunned ranks of Nindronburgers directly in front of the enemy king, even as he and his captains pulled back such forces as they could and quit the field.

  Once their commanders abandoned them, Turtioc’s helpless men tried to flee. Many of them were ridden down. Others threw away their weapons and surrendered. They had seen enough of the Soul Snatcher’s face for one day and they did not wish to share the experience that hundreds of their comrades had already come to know.

  ****

  After the battle, Loric ordered his men into three groups. The first group was to watch over prisoners. The second was to set a forward skirmish line, in case Turtioc’s retreat was only a ruse. The third group was to join him, as he wandered the field in search of the place where Aldric had fallen. He directed pairs of men to gather their wounded brothers as they came upon them, until they came to the place where Aldric lay.

  His helmet was lying beside him, badly dented. There was an egg-sized knot upon the lord’s brow. His chest was moving, ever so subtly, from his shallow breathing. Loric raced forward, shouting for Elberon, who was right beside him all along. Loric’s heart was jammed against his spine, and his lungs were flat and empty within his chest, as he waited for the old physician to examine Aldric.

  Elberon felt for heartbeat and listened for breathing. His head began wagging, subtly at first.

  Then a grin broke across his countenance. His nod gained vigor. His eyes shone with pleasure.

  “Our lord lives,” he wheezed from between the wedge of tears and jubilance.

  Loric felt his lightheadedness as he resumed normal breathing. He let off an anxious

  chuckle. “Improvise stretchers from tent poles and canvas. Lord Aldric and others need us to bear them back to camp.”

  Those men obeyed him as they would have obeyed Aldric.

  ****

  Loric waited for Aldric to wake, until Elberon chased him off. “Rest. Freshen up. You have done enough this day to earn that, at the very least.”

  Lor
ic reluctantly obeyed the wise old physician. He returned to his tent and stripped off his tattered cloak and sword belt. His blood-soaked surcoat and chain shirt soon followed suit. One of Aldric’s captains, a somber man named Bartrinic, brought him fresh water unbidden, as though he was a servant. Loric thanked the man for his kindness, reminded him that he was a captain and sent him on his way. Then he washed his face and hands and flopped down to rest.

  ****

  “Lord?” questioned a voice from outside his dreams. “Lord?” it came louder to his ears,

  waking him at last. Marblin was there. “Lord Aldric stirs,” the Moonwatcher said quietly.

  Loric was instantly on his feet and stumbling out to join Marblin. He walked briskly, questioning after the Lord of Egolstadt and what state he was in, while Marblin answered his many queries in quick order. Two guards stood their posts outside the tent. They looked at the approaching tandem and nodded their permission for Loric to enter.

  Within, Loric was surprised to find that his liege was entertaining men of great rank. Lords Garrick and Garrett were there, as was King Avalar. “Pardon, lords,” he apologized. “I can come back another time-”

  “Nonsense,” Garrick said with a wave. “I command you to stay.”

  Avalar smiled broadly and remarked, “Great show, Lord Loric! You make a fierce leader--

  and you are humble too.”

  Aldric grinned at his squire and murmured, “You are a born leader, Loric of Shimmermir and Taeglin. It seems that I owe my life to your valor.”

  “And we the battle,” Garrick added proudly.

  “Rumor has it that the Ghost of Palendar rides with Aldric,” Garrett remarked sourly.

  “Perhaps this squire receives credit that is not due him.”

  Uneasy quiet settled over the once-merry meeting.

  Aldric decided to ignore Garrett’s comments. Instead of broaching the matter of Loric’s true ancestry, he thanked the son of Palendar, saying, “Forget this foolish talk. Enjoy the favor you have earned and know that you are the hero of the day.”