Felmere looked at the younger man. ‘I have seen so many battles; every time I hope it is the last one, the key one to finish this damned broil. May
Artorus let this be it. I am getting too old to sit in the saddle anymore. In five years my son will be of age; it would be good to bequeath him a stable, peaceful land.’
‘I truly hope Artorus will do it for you,’ said Dominic. ‘But now is not the time to get wistful about it. See – Vinoyen and Haslan Falls are set.’
Felmere looked over the field. ‘Indeed, signal the archers!’
From behind him the trumpets sounded. They stopped for a few seconds and then repeated the signal. Felmere’s charger’s ears pricked; it was a horse born for battle and its excitement
was easy to read, even through its thick barding.
The knights watched as a thin line of dark-clad men emerged from the ranks of the troops and quietly crossed the field until they had the range of the enemy. The Arshumans still had not finished
their deployment; quite a few were holding fiery torches, providing an easy target. Their broad yellow banners, stretching the width of their battle line, were easy to see, too. As the two men
watched on, the archers let fly. Some three hundred bowstrings sang, the shafts released briefly darkening the sky before dropping on the unprotected Arshuman lines. This happened a few times until
Felmere noticed the enemy cavalry preparing a charge. They had more cavalry than the Tanaren forces, including mercenaries – they always held the advantage in this respect – so the
Baron had the retreat signalled. As the archers withdrew, their own light cavalry rode out to screen and protect them. The Arshuman cavalry thought better than to advance and so held their ground.
It was first blood to Tanaren.
Cheris watched this early skirmishing and felt her mouth go dry. Across the quiet field she could even hear the screams of men as the arrows fell upon them. As the archers
withdrew from the field, running through the ranks of the infantry, the men of Tanaren let out a roar of triumph. The quiet was not about to return. She was still wondering whether or not to start
casting her spells – and indeed which one she should choose and where she should cast it – when she felt something – a presence, something crackling in her mind, a frisson of
electricity that made her shudder and tingle. Someone was out there, trying to read her. She scanned the darkening horizon, trying to sense the cause of this intrusion. Her eyes alighted on the
copse. He was there, no doubting it, under the trees, surrounded by knights. They were almost directly opposite each other. How ironic! Lucan’s humour was legendary after all. As she detected
him, she felt him reach out to her. It was strange, this touching of minds; it was like having a shard of cold ice worming its way through her brain. One thing, though, there was no hiding now. Her
staff hummed in her hand and she decided a touch of flamboyance was required. A quick word, a gesture, and the staff was covered in a blue nimbus of light which flickered up and down its length and
crackled in her hand. Hopefully that will send him a small message, she thought, digging the staff into the soft ground. She decided to wait and see what this man could do, so she could try to
counter him and gauge his power. The sky was indigo now, clouds splashed across it like dagger thrusts. The pale moon was finding its strength and the bats were still out; she saw one skitter
across its luminous surface.
Suddenly there was a great throaty roar to her left. The soldiers were shouting, clashing their weapons against their shields and waving them at the enemy. The top of the hill was on fire.
Baron Felmere was grinning from ear to ear. They watched the flames move from catapult to catapult, turning them into great burning torches. The light from them illuminated the
sky, throwing shapes on to the city’s high towers. One of the great war machines pitched over the wall on to the hill below, where it ignited a pine tree. The tree burned, sending showers of
sparks into the air. The fire was nearly certain to spread, Felmere thought, hopefully throwing the Arshuman lines into chaos.
‘Signal the general advance.’
Trumpets sounded and the drums in the field answered. Slowly the blocks of infantry advanced, the largest, Felmere’s own men, in the centre, flanked by Lasgaart’s, Vinoyen’s,
Fenchard’s and Maynard’s men. The light cavalry flanked them on both sides. From their vantage point they heard the drummers beating out a steady two-four pattern.
‘Watch out for their horse archers,’ Felmere growled. ‘They have haunted my dreams for years. It is the main way they outmatch us. We have tried mercenaries against them, heavy
cavalry, long spears, but still they punish us. I have tried deploying archers between the infantry blocks here; it probably won’t work but hopefully it will make them think.’
As if in response, the curved brass horns of the Arshumans sounded from across the field and their infantry slowly started to move forward, five blocks of men each numbering three to four
hundred, the front ranks holding their yellow kite shields waist high, giving the appearance of a single entity such was their well-drilled precision. Their speed was glacial, though it gave time
for the thin line of cavalry to form up in front of them, the lightly armoured horse numbering some three hundred or so. They started off at a gentle trot but gradually started to pick up speed as
they advanced, soon leaving the footmen far behind them.
‘And now we reach the next stage,’ Dominic muttered under his breath.
Cheris watched the men advance, hearing their mailed boots on the soft grass and the clanking of metal armour and chain mail. The hoarse cries of the captains goading the men on, organising
them, encouraging them, rose above the general cacophony. She gripped her staff with a clammy hand, finding its coldness reassuring, and then she realised that her opponent was up to something. She
felt him reaching through the divide, pulling its power towards him. How could she thwart him? She shut her eyes trying to close the breach, stop the flow of energy he was drawing upon, but her
heart sank as she realised she might well be too late. She could sense him, sense what he was doing, but getting into his brain and stopping him was another matter – he already had enough
power for what he wanted to do.
‘Shit!’ she cursed to herself.
Her eyes opened and she saw it. In the copse she saw it glowing, a patch of incandescence among the trees. It rose into the air blotting out the emerging stars, a mini-sun standing out against
the moon and the burning hill. It arced upwards and then started to drop, a ball of fire plummeting towards the rear ranks of Felmere’s troops...
With mounting horror and feeling utterly helpless, the Baron watched the sorcerer’s fire dropping on to his men. He saw the rear ranks scatter, desperately trying to get
out of the way, but it was too late for some. The fireball crashed among them, exploding in an inferno of red and white flame that threw people ten feet into the air and immolated other poor souls
who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
‘Mytha’s claw!’ the Baron growled. ‘How many did we lose then? Twenty? Thirty?’
‘About that,’ said Dominic. ‘But the men are regrouping; they are made of strong stuff... It could have been a lot worse.’
‘Maybe. But it was just as well it didn’t get Fenchard’s or Maynard’s men; I have serious doubts about
their
quality. We probably wouldn’t see their arses
for dust if it had hit them.’
‘If they get through this, they will be the stronger for it. See, the line is moving again.’ Dominic spoke with some satisfaction; Felmere was not nearly so happy.
‘Where was our damned mage then? Is she dead? She was supposed to be stopping this.’
‘I don’t think she is dead. Maybe naive and unused to battle. Maybe she should have gone up the hill instead of Marcus.’
‘No, the catapults are blazing; at least we don’t have them to contend with.’
Dominic jerked his head in the direction of Grest. ‘But look at that fire; he is probably trapped up there until it dies.’
‘That is battle, my friend. You can plan for months but always the Gods will throw the unexpected at you. And now it’s the horse archers; see, they have hidden their yellow colours
so as not to leave a mark. They are coming.’ The Baron spoke through gritted teeth.
Night was almost upon them, but the fire on the hill threw a bloody crimson glow on to a battlefield dominated by long shadows and crepuscular shapes. The horsemen were riding
at the front ranks of the army of Tanaren, releasing deadly volleys from their half-sized bows, then turning around and riding away, before the archers, protected by the shieldmen about them, could
draw a bead on them.
But, despite all that, the infantry still advanced, stepping over and around the dead and wounded, leaving them to be stretchered off by the orderlies hovering behind the battle lines, risking
their own safety by trying to save what lives they could. The drummers still beat out their rhythm and the infantry of the enemy drew closer and closer.
Cheris was angry and embarrassed. The Arshuman mage had hoodwinked her entirely and men were dead because of it. Part of her wanted to run off and sob behind the nearest tree,
to curse the Gods for putting her in this situation, but another part of her, that competitive part, the one that hated losing even at the games of pitch stones she played as a child against the
college walls, was being awakened .
Don’t be angry! she told herself. It leads only to bad decisions and mistakes – be cold, be frosty! Marcus is trapped on the hill, so it is down to you and no one else. Think girl,
Think!
Rather than going for the spectacular, she decided on a different tactic. Moving closer to the knights protecting her so that she wouldn’t inadvertently hit them, she assayed a flowing
gesture with her left hand, pointed her staff forward and whispered, ‘
Cuveatanu parissima!
’
The language was that of the Arcane, words of power from ancient sources such as the earliest Kozean or the elves of the plains. Potent words, a vocalisation of that energy touched across the
divide, designed to focus the mana she was drawing from the Plane of Lucan, that magical realm that maybe only one person in ten or even fifty thousand was capable of reaching or seeing.
From her staff a blue-white bolt shot forth. It was aimed in the general direction of the Arshuman lines but that was not important. What was important was how her enemy responded. The bolt was
just short of the whirling Arshuman cavalry when it disappeared, dispelled by the enemy mage. Cheris tried another and another, each one with the same result. She aimed a slightly more powerful one
above the heads of the horses, only for it to disappear in a shower of green and red sparks like a Tarindian firework, causing a couple of the horses to be spooked and throw their riders. To all
outward appearances, this mage was countering her every move.
But she was satisfied. He was drawing on his staff’s power to stop her, not on his own; the fireball had obviously drained him for a while. If she kept doing this, eventually his staff
would be drained, leaving him with only his own resources to fall back on. Then she would have him.
‘Pretty, isn’t it?’ said Dominic, watching Cheris’s pyrotechnic display. ‘But is it actually doing anything?’
‘Actually yes, it is,’ said Felmere. ‘It is keeping their mage busy. She may not have his power but we will get no more fireballs while this keeps on going on.’
‘But what if he kills her?’
‘It will be regrettable, but she is serving her purpose at the present. The
Grand Duke has approved another mage for us. I was going to give him to Esric in the south. The troops involved in the southern war are much fewer and a mage could make a bigger difference
there, but if we lose one here we have a ready replacement.’
Dominic nodded at this news, then saw the latest development in the battle below them. ‘The horse archers are withdrawing; they will sit on either flank of their army from now
on.’
‘And now we are coming down do what really matters in every battle I have ever fought.’
‘The press of men?’ asked Dominic.
‘The press of men.’
On both sides the troops had stopped marching. They stood facing each other, not a hundred yards apart. To the Arshumans’ right the hill still burned. The Tanarese
captains watched their enemy – their shields locked together, spears held forward above them, their broad yellow banners bearing nothing else but the number of each unit, one to five. There
was no denying they looked more cohesive than the Tanaren army, the blue of Felmere and Tanaren, the green of Vinoyen, the red of Lasgaart, but it was heart that won a battle, not colours,
especially where numbers were evenly matched like this. The signal came from the hill behind them and to the left where Felmere was stationed. At once the cry went up.
‘Shield wall!’
The men drew closer to each other locking the edge of their shields over that of the man next to them. They had each been provided with a spear, which, like the Arshuman soldiers, they now held
over the shield, pointing it outward towards the foe. Although they had their regular weapons, which they would use as soon as was practicable, the spear was always the first weapon used when
shield walls clashed. Up and down the ranks the men were encouraging each other.
‘I am with you, Tarek.’ said a man with a broad grey beard to his companion, a man almost identical in every respect except for a bleeding wound on his scalp.
‘We stand with each other’ was a common imprecation called out by many captains on both sides.
‘Those yellow dogs won’t push us back,’ cried a man in the front rank. He was young and was shouting to overcome his nerves, exhorting himself as much as anyone else.
‘Mytha is with us, friend. Fear is for the enemy, not us.’ That from his captain who stood not ten feet from him, trying to sound as reassuring as possible.
Then came the second signal, the one they had waited for. The captains called out.
‘Advance!’
As if in reply the Arshuman horns blared out their own chorus.