“My lord—my lord—a messenger has come—gods know how they found us—a man from Galid’s band. He’s brought a challenge, my lord, an invitation to battle in the vale below the White Horse downs!”
“Guess he got tired of chasing us around the marshes—” Tegues said into the silence.
Tirilan got her feet under her and began to work her way down from the mound. Mikantor faced the men who were crowding around him. By now the original dozen Companions had grown to a band nearly a hundred strong.
“Some we can hide, but not all,” said Curlew, “or you can go to our brothers in the south. . . .”
“We’ve done enough hiding!” Pelicar exclaimed. “If I send to my mother, more men of my tribe will come. Galid has stolen too many of our sheep!”
“And mine,” said Romen, as others began to echo him.
“Will you accept the challenge? Are we ready?” murmured Tirilan, taking Mikantor’s arm.
“The men will go stale if we wait too long—” He glanced at the mound and then down at her. “But you—”
“I will go with you, of course,” she said firmly. “Ganath cannot tend your scrapes all alone.”
For a moment, Mikantor looked into her eyes, the desire to keep her safe clearly warring with the realization that if he left her here she would follow on her own. Then he nodded, and scrambled to the top of the mound.
“Men of the moors, and men of the vales and hills and plains, I call you!” he cried. “Galid has challenged me! The land itself cries out against him—will you follow me to put an end to his evil?” The cheering of the men around them seemed to echo against the sky. “Then let us feast tonight, and tomorrow we will be on our way!”
BENEATH GRAY SKIES THE downs glowed a vivid green. Soon the red of blood would add another note of color to the scene. But standing here with his warriors around him, hard-bodied men who had tested themselves against him and each other for nearly a year, Mikantor could not believe it would be his own. Who could defeat them? Certainly not men who had spent the winter lazing by Galid’s fire.
“Clack, clack, clack!” The Vale resounded as enemy spearshafts struck wooden shields. Their swords were still sheathed. Mikantor knew his own men had better blades. He suppressed the inner whisper that those swords had not been tested in battle, whereas Galid’s warriors were scarred and grizzled veterans. He had had a winter to think about battle, to play out strategies with stones and sticks for men. But there was only one cure for inexperience, and Galid had the medicine.
He adjusted the set of his helmet, of hardened leather over a bronze frame, wishing he had one of the bronze-plated helms he had seen in Tiryns. Most of his men made do with simple leather caps. They had insisted he wear a vest of boiled leather as well, though they did not have enough metal to reinforce it. Most of his men had some kind of protection, and he could see that Galid’s force did as well, though the clansmen and men of the tribes had none. Some had stripped for action and would go into battle bare.
Mikantor had placed his men on a grassy pasture where the downs fell in wooded folds to the rolling ground of the Vale, his Companions in the middle and his allies to either side. Above them, the stylized outlines of the White Horse showed stark against the green. Mikantor had thought of the woods beneath it as a refuge. They might also be a trap, he realized, but it was too late to change his dispositions now. From the trees a crow was calling. Others answered from the air or settled with their brethren among the trees.
Tell your Lady to be patient,
he thought grimly.
She will have her offering.
Through the clamor as his men moved into their positions came an oath in the language of the Middle Sea. The voice was too deep to be Lysandros’. Heart pounding, Mikantor turned and glimpsed a familiar burly form.
“Velantos!” he called. “What are you doing out in such weather?” The skies were releasing a mizzling drift of moisture that could not decide whether to be rain or cloud.
“The gods know I nearly went back to bed when I saw the sky,” grumbled the smith, pushing through the crowd, “but I thought you might be able to use another pair of arms.”
Mikantor slid his shield off his arm and gripped the older man’s shoulders, only at that moment realizing how deeply he had hoped the smith would be there to fight at his side. The muscles moved like rock beneath his hands.
“Now we are unbeatable!” He grinned.
“Clack, clack . . .” replied the enemy spears.
“They look strong—” said Velantos.
They looked
experienced,
thought Mikantor as they drew closer, opposing a steady confidence, or maybe it was contempt, to the enthusiasm of Mikantor’s men.
“Well, so are we—” he said brightly. “But where is your shield?”
“Castor and Pollux here will ward me,” said Velantos, loosening the two wickedly gleaming axes thrust through loops in his belt.
“Those are new,” Mikantor said appreciatively.
The smith shrugged. “I got tired of making swords, and thought it was time to make use of Bodovos’ training.”
“We both owe him a great deal. I wish he was here.” Mikantor sighed. “Speaking of which, what have you done with Aelfrix?”
“Left him at Avalon with orders to tie him up if he tried to follow me.”
“And Anderle?”
Velantos looked uncomfortable. “That one has no need to travel. She can ride the wind.”
“That might not make any difference. So can Tirilan, but she is up on that hill—” He nodded toward the cluster of trees that hid the old tomb. “She said she could watch from afar, but not bind up our wounds unless she was with us. The men all promised her they would survive the battle unscathed, but she came anyway.” He and Velantos exchanged looks.
“We must do our best not to need her skills,” said the smith. “Where do you wish me to stand?”
“I’ve placed the tribal bands on my right and the men of the old blood on the left, with my Companions in the center. We have trained to fight in threes, so Pelicar and Acaimor will stand to either side of me. But you might watch my back, and take on anything that gets through their guard.”
“I expect there will be enough work for all of us,” Velantos remarked, his gaze on the enemy.
Mikantor glimpsed the russet cloaks of Galid’s personal guard and felt hatred flare through his veins like the fire in which Galid had allowed his mother to burn. In waking life he did not remember her, but he still had nightmares about fire. At least the warlord had not had the gall to assume the royal horns of the bull. Galid’s men wore fox pelts around their shoulders. He hoped that would prove a prediction—foxes were sly thieves, as ready to flee as to steal. Perhaps he should have worn his lynx skin, he thought then. He was going to need the wiry strength of the big cat today.
He tensed at a ripple of movement along the enemy line. Spearmen peeled away to either side to reveal Galid’s guard in the center, facing his own. Galid himself stayed in the midst of them, next to a man even taller than Pelicar, and heavier. This must be Muddazakh, the warrior from some northern land whom Galid had made his champion. The big man leaned on the young tree he used for a spear shaft as a smaller, slighter figure emerged from the enemy ranks to dance toward them, the beast tails fastened to his hide cloak fluttering with every move.
“That is Hino, the usurper’s fool,” muttered Ulansi from behind him. “Get ready for insults—that’s the only kind of humor the idiot knows.”
“Ho there, hill hares—you ready for the foxes? Hares run good. You ready to run?”
“Kick good too. We’ll kick your butts,” muttered the men of the moors.
“Our butts? Do you have moss to wipe your own? You’ll be fouling yourselves soon—a bunch o’ brown butts, that’s all we’ll see of you. A bunch of baby butts, running for your mothers.”
“Galid killed my mother,” Mikantor replied. “I don’t leave this field till his blood feeds the ground.”
“Poor little boy!” retorted the fool. “Traded from pillar to post, herding the sheep and sweeping the store. Even those holy bitches on Avalon threw him out. Don’t you wonder why no one would keep him? Poor little bumboy—how many masters did you serve?”
“Steady!” cried Mikantor as the growl of outrage behind him swelled to a roar, Velantos’ loudest of all. “Better to serve honest men than to batten off a pack of murdering thieves!” Now there was anger in the murmurs behind him. Even those who had not suffered themselves had friends or family with reason to hate Galid’s men.
“Clack! Clack! Clack!”
“Galid, come forth!” Mikantor’s shout rose above the beating spears. “Will you hide behind this fool? We summon you to answer for the men you have murdered, the women you have raped, the farms you have destroyed! The land itself cries out against you! The Goddess rejects you—”
His voice cracked on the final shout as the clacking ceased and the spearmen dropped to one knee. There were archers behind them. Mikantor was still lifting his shield when the arrows came.
He staggered as three bolts thunked into the wood. Acaimor cried out and sagged against him, a black-feathered shaft standing out from his breast. Mikantor took a quick step to stand over his body as Ulansi dashed forward to take his place.
The men of the moors and marshes got their bows up and began to reply, but their bows were lighter than those of the enemy, and they could not match the concentrated power of that first, unexpected flight. A few of Galid’s men fell, but the rest were filling in the gap before Galid’s guard and advancing, shields up, spears poised. For a pack of robbers, they showed surprising discipline.
Mikantor had the higher ground, but that would make no difference if they did not use it. “Companions, up spears!” he cried, lifting his own as the enemy came into range. “Cast!” This was a move his men had practiced. A dozen arms swept back, a dozen lithe bodies flexed, and the spears flew.
Now it was the enemy who were staggering and going down. “Charge!” cried Mikantor, seeing holes appear in their line. Drawing their swords, the Companions lengthened stride, using the slope to propel them toward the foe, as the allies fell in to either side to form the flanges of the spearhead. “Choose your man!” his screamed, fixing his own gaze on a scruffy fellow with a brindled beard. Then suddenly the man was before him; he smashed his shield against the enemy’s, spinning the man around, arm swinging to slash his unprotected side.
The sword sprayed crimson as he recovered; for a moment it was the King Stag Mikantor saw, understanding dawning in his widening eyes. He had a moment to be surprised that it should be no different to kill a man. Then he whirled, angling the shield to knock an oncoming spear aside, blade rising to counter another, passing beneath the shaft to pierce leather and cloth and flesh. He jerked the blade free, dodging, striking. There was no more time for thought, only reaction, as responses trained by endless practice directed sword and shield. Pelicar and Ulansi moved in rhythm beside him. Behind him he heard a meaty thunk and a scream as Velantos’ ax clove flesh and bone.
A chaos of bloody, struggling forms surrounded him, in which his Companions formed islands of disciplined violence. Too few, he thought, when for a moment no enemy confronted him. A flicker in the light brought his gaze upward, and for a moment he glimpsed the shining shape of a swan. He could feel Tirilan’s love strengthening him, but his allies were being driven off the field. He had to get to Galid. The usurper would be hiding behind his champion, whose tall form rose above the fray. Even with the sword the man would have the reach on him, but at least the giant had lost his spear. Mikantor began to work his way toward him.
“Ho, big man!” he cried. “Is that a sword or a club you’re wielding? D’ye know what to do with that blade?”
“Stick it up your arse, bumboy!” grunted the giant, swerving to face him.
“Give us space!” Mikantor called to the others, springing forward, ducking under Muddazakh’s swing to slash at his calves. His foe was more nimble than he had expected; the sharp tip of his blade barely scored the flesh before the man had moved, blade whirling around in a blow that would have taken Mikantor’s head off if he had not gotten his shield up in time. The heavy blade smashed into the top of his shield, cracking the bronze rim and shattering the wood a handbreadth down.
He could feel the wooden slats begin to give as the next blow fell, but it held his enemy’s blade as he stabbed upward, felt the point go in. A spray of blood followed as he danced back, but Muddazakh took no notice. Was the man made of stone? Mikantor glimpsed faces, leering or cheering, in a ring around them. He ducked aside as the sword came down, slipped on wet grass, rolled, and came up again, but the shield had cracked as he hit the ground. When he caught the next blow, it split, and all he could do was cast the pieces away.
At this point, in practice, an honorable opponent would step back and drop his own shield. That was not going to happen here. All Mikantor could do now was dodge and parry, feeling the shock ripple through his arm with each clang of the blades. But he thought that Muddazakh might finally be slowing. . . . He straightened, breathing hard. The giant strode forward with lifted blade, blood streaming down his breast, not even trying to guard.
I have him now,
thought Mikantor. As the enemy sword came down he stepped under the swing, bringing up his own blade to deflect the other and pierce that bull-like neck in a stroke the giant would not be able to ignore. Muddazakh’s blade blurred toward him, struck with a clang. A sound Mikantor had never heard from a sword split the air as the leaf-shaped blade cracked across and the top half wheeled away.
What was left barely reached the giant’s belly. Knocked off balance, Mikantor rolled as Muddazakh’s sword bit into the ground where he had been, grasped the shaft of a shattered spear, and came up swinging. The ring had disintegrated into a chaos of struggling men, half of whom seemed to be surging toward him. Beyond them, his allies were beginning to flee. He batted an enemy sword away, slashed with the stump of his own, too busy trying to stay alive to wonder whether he should follow them.