Chapter 37
Maeneb knew that they were losing, and it made her angry.
She blamed the Kelvhans. They’d gone in too early, charging at the enemy on their prancing over-decorated horses, which had promptly panicked at the first rush of darkburns and had thrown several of their riders – then trampling on them for good measure.
The premature charge had not allowed enough time for stakes to be set, as Ikelder had suggested: a good suggestion that had worked where a single meagre row had been put hurriedly in place. The stakes had caught the stonemen’s chains with such unexpected impact that they’d been pulled right off their horses and were easily dispatched. But elsewhere the pairs of stonemen rode in herding darkburns with impunity.
Kelvha had been pushed back; had regrouped; and had charged again. Maeneb knew it wasn’t fair to blame the troops, who were both skilled and determined. She blamed the Arch-Lord Marshal Shargun, because he did not learn.
Whereas the stonemen did. It surprised her because on previous encounters they had stuck rigidly to one strategy: attack. But now they used new tactics – pretending to turn tail and run, so luring the Kelvhan cavalry onto boggy ground. The stonemen, they discovered, had already laid down planks to enable their escape on foot; but the pursuing horses floundered, lurched and fell. Maeneb felt more pity for the horses than the Kelvhans, who surely should have foreseen this, and certainly shouldn’t have been caught out after the first time it happened. But orders once given seemed to be followed blindly.
Perhaps the Arch-Lord Shargun had such force of numbers that, like the stonemen, he didn’t worry about casualties. When Kelvha were pushed back a second time, Shargun had rejected outright the suggestions of the Vonn – and of some of his own captains – that they should forgo the cavalry and advance with archers and foot-soldiers. He seemed to think that the only worthy wars were fought on horseback. Parthenal returned from the meeting of captains tight-lipped and icy with suppressed rage.
“What a puffed-up bag of wind,” he expostulated. “Thinks he’s inherited genius along with his titles. He’s got staff with ten times more brains, but will he listen to them?”
“I’m guessing not,” said Maeneb.
There was no time for a third charge in any case before the stonemen came up with another novel tactic. From the far forts they dragged out great wheeled catapults, with which they fired bundles of burning pitch and straw across the battlefield. These were distracting but not especially disruptive.
However, they paved the way for more deadly missiles: when a darkburn came hurtling over their heads the pandemonium was immediate. Nobody had been prepared for this. As a second one shot overhead, wrapped in red-hot chains, Maeneb did not know whether to laugh or wail. Although the darkburn shattered on hitting the ground, the burning pieces flew through the nearest troops with devastating effect. Throughout the ranks the same was happening as more darkburns plunged down from the sky.
And now she was dealing with the aftermath, half-stunned with shouts and screaming horses and the clash of iron, and assailed even more by the fear and hate and anger emanating from all sides, all minds, as she fought the new oncoming wave of stonemen. She had run out of arrows long ago. During one of the brief lulls she and a few others had managed to purloin chain mail vests from some of the Kelvhan dead, to replace their own slashed and battered leather armour. The metal was effective but it was hot and heavy, and she was quickly wearying.
Her feet stuck to the ground, for the field had turned to mud. Dead and injured horses were a constant hindrance. None the less, her company under Parthenal’s command was making headway, as were the companies of Rothir and Ikelder to the left and right. The stonemen seemed to concentrate their forces on the Kelvhan cavalry, who were now riding out yet again.
It caused Parthenal to groan. “Has the man no sense?”
“Who’s that in the middle of them?” Maeneb asked.
He stared over at the group of horsemen. “Oh, no. What the stars can they be thinking of? That’s the Prince!”
Maeneb stared too, in disbelief. But it was so. The High Prince was riding out with the latest company of Kelvhans – not at their head, it was true, but still exposed unnecessarily, when the battle was at its height and the Kelvhans were getting the worst of it.
She could not imagine why Shargun had allowed this. Prince Faldron was reportedly a brave and eager boy, but a mere boy none the less: untested and unproven. And he was the heir to the entire kingdom of Kelvha.
“They must be mad,” she said to Parthenal.
“Well, we can’t help him,” he answered, raising his sword in preparation for the next stoneman wave. “Just do what we can here – and pray.”
Pray? To whom? What god of war might she call on, to make things worse than they already were? In any case Maeneb believed in no gods. She believed in something, maybe, but not in proud supernatural beings that might reluctantly be bribed by prayers to take sides in a battle.
All this she thought, as she slew a stoneman running headlong at her. Then she dodged a stray axe which flew past her to thud into the ground, before she picked it up and hurled it at a second stonemen. A lucky shot: it hit him in the face. She was aware of Rigal engaged in grunting axe-work next to her, and Durba nearby, hesitant and slow.
“Look out!” she shouted, and threw her sword like a spear at the stoneman that was about to bring his axe down on top of Durba’s head. The man fell backwards with a cry of surprise. Durba turned in dazed bewilderment as Maeneb strode up to retrieve her sword and finish the stoneman off with a blow between the ribs.
“Wake up,” Maeneb shouted at the younger woman, exasperated. “I can’t take care of you.”
Durba made no answer. She held her sword unsteadily in both her hands as if unsure of what to do with it. Had she been stunned? Although she was smeared with blood Maeneb could see no wounds upon her head.
Fortunately there was now another lull in the immediate assault: for the stonemen were hurrying away to add their numbers to the attack on Kelvha. Around the Prince, the Kelvhan horsemen struck out again and again, swords flashing orange as fire in the late sun; but the horde of the surrounding foe became no smaller. Rather it increased in size.
She realised that the Kelvhans were trying to retreat – but now they were cut off by stonemen. The Prince was in dire peril.
“We need to go to their aid!” she yelled to Parthenal, although she knew that there was little they could do.
But at the same time she saw that others of the Vonn were already racing to the Prince’s rescue. Huldarion and Thoronal and perhaps some thirty of the Riders came charging at a run, attacking the stonemen at the rear.
She glimpsed Huldarion’s face, set and hard, as he laid about him mercilessly with his sword. The Prince, still waving his own sword less effectively, looked just as eager as before. He seemed quite unaware of any danger – either his own, or that of the men who now surrounded him in his defence.
That was all that she had time to see before she had to turn round swiftly to attend to the defence of her own company, for a dozen stonemen were pounding heavily towards them. Durba just stood there. She was worse than useless. What was wrong with the girl?
Maeneb battled with the stoneman who led this latest charge – a big, heavily-scarred man with at least ten stones in his head: a leader, she thought, as she parried the blow from his sword and tried to get in her own. He was a more skilful fighter than most, and she was desperately tired. As their blades clashed she gritted her teeth in the effort to ward him off.
Rigal came to her aid, his sword slicing through the man’s thick neck. Maeneb stepped back with a sigh of relief – which turned in the same breath to a groan.
For now she saw yet more troops marching out from behind the fifteenth fort, emerging from obscuring clouds of smoke. Reinforcements. Hundreds of them; thousands.
“Oh, no,” murmured Rigal, echoing her dismay.
Too many. Far too many. She leant exhausted on her sword. These troops must have been deliberately held back until now, to have all the more effect when Kelvha and the Vonn were weakened with fatigue and casualties. Now they flowed out from behind the fort – a river of stonemen, running fast with axes held aloft.
“Back! Get those injured men away, and re-group!” shouted Parthenal. A little distance away, Rothir was urging his own company to do the same. But everyone was weary and few were unhurt. Maeneb herself was trying to ignore a gash on her shoulder as well as aching muscles that screamed for rest. She scrabbled in the mud and blood for spent arrows, finding only three.
“Back into the line! We’ll show them what we’re made of!” roared Parthenal. Yet for a man who seldom displayed any weariness, his near-exhaustion was all too obvious now. The strain showed in his face and in his voice.
All the companies of the Vonn regrouped, while Huldarion and Thoronal with their men still fought off the enemy that clustered round the Kelvhan Prince. The fighting there was bitter, yet they seemed to be holding their own – so far. But that would not last once the reinforcements reached the stonemen. Nobody could hold out. Every company was too diminished by wounds and too spent in strength.
Maeneb knew that the next attack would be the last. The Vonn could not survive much longer. Kelvha had failed them, with their blind insistence on their cavalry. All around her she felt despair spread amongst her fellows; but also an implacable resolve. The Vonn would not die lightly, nor would they see their friends die without defending them to the utmost.
She herself was angry more than anything. Gripping her sword, she surveyed the ranks of the new stoneman army with furious determination. The air seemed to darken as if in anticipation of the Riders’ coming fate. Maeneb thought she even noticed stars glittering around a luminous moon, but had no time to pay attention to the sky. She was glowering at the advancing enemy.
Then she exclaimed aloud.
“What on earth is that?”
Nobody replied. They too were staring in exhausted puzzlement. The enemy army seemed to have broken apart at the back – dividing into two halves as if cleaved open by some huge invisible sword. Men ran from either side. But she could not see anything in the middle.
Until suddenly she could. Where before there had been only smoke, now there was a dark surging mass cutting its way through the enemy ranks. But it was not a human army. She saw to her amazement that it was a sea of creatures, running low and swiftly, flooding across the battlefield and calling as they ran. Howl after howl curled up into the darkening sky. Her blood chilled.
“What the stars?” breathed Rigal. “Are those…?”
“Wolves,” said Maeneb.
“Wolves? But how?”
“Veron.”
For there he was, galloping in the midst of the great wolf-pack, standing on the stirrups to whirl his bladed chain around his head. As he reached the front of the stoneman army the blades flew out and struck several of the enemy. They staggered and fell; an instant later the wolves were tearing at their limbs.
At this sight, more stonemen tried to flee in panic. Others, unable to escape, attempted to defend themselves against the onslaught of ravenously snapping wolves.
What is this? thought Maeneb. Surely this is not just Veron? Wolves do not behave this way. And nor do stonemen.
For the stonemen who remained in their positions seemed to stumble oddly, as if blinded by some light she could not see. Many of them dropped their swords and axes, while those who held on to them lowered them uncertainly.
The mass of wolves drew closer. When a stray one hurled itself at Maeneb she hit it on the nose with her shield, at which it yelped and swerved back to its fellows. That at least was relatively normal. But nothing else was normal about the scene that lay before her.
Despite the wavering of the stonemen, their army was still far greater in number than the wolves. While the stonemen in the centre had become weak and ineffectual, those furthest from the animals regathered their wits speedily and once more flung themselves upon the Vonn. No sooner had Parthenal shouted a warning than Maeneb found herself again fighting desperately: and now she had to defend not just herself, but also Durba, who was hesitant and unresponsive.
Could the wolves sway the battle? Maeneb feared not, for the enemy onslaught was still fierce. She turned from slitting a stoneman’s throat with her long knife to find Yaret standing next to her, shooting off arrows, although she had not even noticed her arrive.
“Where did you come from?” she yelled through the hubbub of shouts and howls.
“With Veron,” Yaret yelled back, releasing another arrow. A stoneman fell; but too many more still rushed in from either side.
“It’s not enough!” cried Maeneb in frustration. As she spoke, an axe-man charged at Durba. Why was the girl so slow? Maeneb threw herself at the attacker, and lost both her balance and her knife. A heavy blow of the axe upon her shield sent her stumbling to her knees.
An instant later the stoneman fell with Yaret’s sword between his ribs. But before Maeneb could get to her feet, a second stoneman hurled his axe at her.
The spinning axe hit her full in the chest with a heavy thump. Her borrowed chain-mail saved her life; but she was thrown onto her back, totally winded, unable for the moment to move. She was helplessly aware of a large stoneman bearing down on her, his eyes glaring, sword upraised. She could not even lift an arm in answer as she waited for the final blow.
A second later he fell on top of her, pinning her to the ground, and lay completely still. Then, over the dead man’s shoulder, Maeneb saw a woman.
A woman? No. Too tall. Too strange, too silver, with her braided silver hair and robes like carven moonlight. She bore a silver spear which she was withdrawing from the dead man’s back, although it seemed to leave no blood. Upon her back, a quiver; in her other hand, a bow, also silver in the icy moonlight that now flooded the plain.
What had happened to the sun? The woman’s face was like marble, both fierce and serene. Those eyes…
Maeneb had to close her own. Trying to catch her breath, she blindly pulled herself free of the dead stoneman’s weight. As she staggered to her feet she was gasping raggedly not just for air, but also with huge fear and apprehension. What was this? What was she?
For the woman’s mind was like nothing that Maeneb had ever felt before; not even the Farwth. It was pure light, silver-white and piercing. Its power made her so conscious of her weakness that she almost fell again.
Stonemen seemed to collapse at the mere touch of the woman’s spear. When she thrust it at one bemused attacker it was with a smooth, effortless movement: and even as the man toppled, the spear was back in the woman’s hand, shimmering. As if a moonbeam had momentarily solidified, thought Maeneb, and had turned to steel before once more becoming moonlight.
A group of a dozen stonemen charged in a chaotic rush, shielding their faces while brandishing their axes – so many of them that despite their disarray Maeneb was sure the woman must be overwhelmed. Snatching up her knife, she stumbled over to assist; but Yaret had already leapt to the strange woman’s defence, and was yelling furiously as she swung her sword two-handed. Maeneb was reminded of Parthenal: that characteristic sway and twist as the sword slashed across the foremost stoneman’s shoulder.
“Don’t you dare!” Yaret shouted, and one man fell beneath her blow. A second blundered forward with his axe upraised, but before he could use it, the woman’s spear alighted on his neck. It left no mark of blood. It did not even pierce the skin. Yet Maeneb both saw and felt the man die at the instant that it touched him.
Yaret was still laying about her frantically; so Maeneb threw herself into the affray, stabbing one man and immediately clashing swords with a second. He fought back hard, snarling like an animal beneath his dozen stones.
The silver spear reached over her to touch him on the shoulder. The man went limp and fell down at her feet. As the spear withdrew it brushed against her hair. She felt her skin both freeze and tingle: like an icicle, like freezing flame, a cold burning caress.
She risked a swift glance at the woman’s face. It seemed to be smiling. Maeneb could not look for long enough to tell.
“You need not defend me,” the woman said. Or did she say it? The words shone white in Maeneb’s mind. Then she had to spin round, swiping her knife at the next stoneman; clumsier than the last, he dropped his sword and she kicked him in the stomach before swiping her knife again, this time across his throat.
Yet more of the enemy were still coming. Too many more. Was there no end to them? She felt exhaustion hit her, more debilitating than any wound.
At that moment, even as she slumped in tiredness, the hairs stood up on her head. The light had shifted sideways: the world seemed to tilt a little. Maeneb became aware from the appalled faces of the stonemen that, behind her back, something had changed.
She did not dare to drop her guard to turn and look. But she heard a long, vibrating growl, as deep and resonant as if it came out of the very earth.
The stonemen yelled. Some were screaming in sudden terror. Then they scattered and a long white creature leapt past Maeneb.
She stood open-mouthed. What was this? No leopard could ever grow to this size, surely? So big, so powerful...
Maeneb could not move. She could only watch as the silver leopard hunted down the stonemen. Its long claws tore the screams from their bodies: curved scimitars of teeth ripped out their throats. It was pitiless. Yet it was beautiful – all sinuous muscle and silky force. How could there be such beauty in such killing?
Beside her Yaret stood gasping with fatigue and perhaps with shock. There was no further need to fight; there was nothing left for them to do. The stonemen were all running now – but the leopard ran faster. Always faster. Its acceleration was extraordinary as it stretched out its rippling body: and its agile leap was always glorious and always deadly.
Was this a dream? Maeneb realised that the sun had disappeared and the world had turned to moonlight. There was Leor, in the middle of the fray, spearing stonemen as if they were fish in a silver sea. Beyond him, still more dream-like, a line of bears was rearing up, startlingly tall, to fall with all their weight upon the fleeing stonemen; and to one side, a pair of lions prowled, speeding to bring down any that escaped.
And always, in the midst, the silver leopard. It was bigger than the lions by far. She saw one lion draw too close to it and flinch aside, its head down, fawning. The leopard seized another stoneman by the neck and flung him away as if he were made out of straw.
Within minutes it was clear that the fight was over. The enemy were in full retreat and being rapidly hunted down. When Maeneb strained to see the great white leopard in pursuit, it was hidden from her sight.
Its disappearance filled her, oddly, with a kind of grief. Again she felt the touch of that long silver spear, moonlight made solid: a cold, acknowledging caress.
“Who was that?” she tried to call to Leor. It came out as a croak. The wizard shook his head and made no answer. Instead he dropped his sword on to the ground and stared at it.
“That was the huntress,” said Yaret. She was breathless, on her knees.
So was Rigal: he looked completely spent. And all around her, Maeneb saw the other Riders cast their weapons, and sometimes their bloodied bodies, to the ground. She felt herself staggering with the knowledge that the battle was over. It was done.
Parthenal threw no weapons down. Instead he strode over to the nearest group of Kelvhans. He seemed to be trying to persuade them to take advantage of the moment and pursue the stonemen in a final rout.
Maeneb was not sure that any such finishing charge was needed. The commotion of animals and stonemen was moving further and further back; few of the enemy had escaped. The battle plain was piled with their wrecked bodies.
Although she knew she ought to help the wounded, she seemed immobilised with more than mere exhaustion. While she stood there, trying to gather her strength, a nearby Kelvhan soldier walked over to her, grabbed her by the upper arms and kissed her.
When he let her go she stood and stared at him, frozen in indignant shock. He grinned down at her. Could she knife him? He was an ally, supposedly. She tried to frame her anger into words, while slowly realising that she must not offend him.
“Victory is ours,” the Kelvhan said triumphantly. She said nothing. All she could do was stare her revulsion of being kissed. The pressing of his teeth against her – what was meant to be pleasant about that? Didn’t he know she was a soldier too? Like Durba and Yaret and all the others?
But I am the most obviously female person on this patch of battleground, she thought furiously. I am his spoils of war.
“So what was that with the wolves and the white lion?” the Kelvhan asked. “Was that witchery?” And now his voice held a note of contempt. Taken aback, Maeneb still did not speak.
A deep male voice spoke for her. “Say rather wizardry.” It was Leor, straightening up to look the Kelvhan in the eye with proud severity.
“Ah… wizardry! Of course.” The Kelvhan nodded, with more respect.
Wise man, Leor, she thought bitterly. To Kelvha, the female art of witchery was to be despised, while wizardry was male and therefore acceptable.
And Leor looked every inch the wizard. His red hair blazed suddenly in the setting sun; and she realised that the moon had lost its sway. Now it had returned to its more usual self – a mere, pale, unobtrusive disc, while the scarlet sun rolled and roared on the horizon.
The soldier kissed his hand to her with a flourish before he strolled away. He ignored both Yaret and Durba who stood nearby. Maeneb wished that she herself were not, as people had informed her, pretty. It was nothing but a handicap. A liability.
At that moment Durba began to fall.
“Look out!” said Yaret. She caught Durba as the girl’s legs buckled underneath her. Durba did not speak, but she was shivering; shaking visibly all over.
“Where are you hurt?” asked Maeneb sharply.
Durba did not answer. She merely shook. Maeneb could see no blood on her beyond the usual scrapes and cuts of battle; the borrowed chain-mail looked to have done its job.
“Durba! Where are you hurt? Speak up!”
“She’s in shock,” said Yaret. “We’d better take her to the rear and sit her down, get her checked over. Then I ought to go back to my own company.”
Maeneb was unwilling. Quite apart from her dislike of touching other people, there were plenty of stricken soldiers who needed her assistance more than Durba did. But the girl seemed incapable of walking, so she helped Yaret support her through the weary troops to the back of the field.
There they found the area designated for the wounded, who were being laid down for immediate treatment, or placed in carts to be carried back to the forts. They sat Durba on the muddy ground. She was still shaking.
“Be nice to her,” said Yaret, and she left.
Maeneb had no idea what to say to Durba. She felt for the girl’s mind, and found it all confusion, as chaotic as the battlefield. Her thoughts – such as they were – seemed to be spattered with blood and flashing blades and moonlight.
“Well, that’s battle,” Maeneb said at last. “What did you expect? But cheer up. We won.”