These farmers, or labourers, or city-dwellers, poor men and women alike, were each shackled to their position, fettered to bronze pins hammered between the stones or into the dirt. Most, it was obvious now, cringed from him, shrieking not in battle rage but in abject terror. They waved and thrust their makeshift weapons uselessly and Jatal contemptuously brushed them aside.
What could be the purpose of such a hopeless demonstration?
Rear ranks, including the Warleader’s men, now charged ahead, pushing forward, trampling the fettered wretches who could not dodge aside. Jatal rose in his stirrups searching for any sign of Andanii. Then everything changed. The front coursers of the Adwami broke through the massed ranks only to suddenly fall as if scythed down by invisible blades taking their legs out from under them. Jatal heard the rattling and clanking of chain over stone as something quivered, spanning the road and stretching out across the dirt to either side.
Some sort of chain barrier! We are trapped!
Then screams from the forest edge behind him where the flanks of the mass now quivered, surging inward like some animal roused to flight. Jatal glimpsed there towering armoured figures bullying and thrusting, urging the horde inward. Yakshaka. A trap. A Sky-King damned trap! The urge overtook him to find that damned arrogant outlander and cut his head off. And where was Andanii!
He did not need to search far for the Warleader for he emerged from the wailing fettered infantry, hacking his way clear with great swings of his two-handed bastard sword. Blood webbed his mail coat and he pushed back his hooded coif to catch Jatal’s gaze. His iron-grey hair plastered his head, sweat-soaked. At that moment he appeared to Jatal as the very god of war.
‘Take your Elites and bring down those yakshaka scum!’ the Warleader commanded.
‘What?’ Jatal shouted, steadying Ash who fought and reared smelling so much blood.
‘Thaumaturgs must be here. Commanding. Leave them to me! Go!’ and he slapped Ash’s flank.
Jatal reared in his saddle raising the rally sign and shouting for the Elites, then hauled Ash round and headed for the rear. Line after line of the lancers curved off to follow. For a moment Jatal had despaired. He’d thought the day lost. But this was just their first brush with resistance — it would be absurd to think their goal of dominion could be accomplished without a fight. The Warleader, damn him, was right.
Jatal’s lance was gone but he had his sabre and this he waved high, encouraging the Elites. He swung Ash over, rounding the border of the infantry mass, and headed for the nearest giant yakshaka soldier. They could hardly be missed, rearing so tall above the horde, and glittering gold and pink in the late afternoon light.
Charging, he leaned as far forward over his saddle as he dared. He extended the sabre out before him, bearing down upon a giant who only now became aware of the threat. Its armoured helm turned slowly to track him. A huge two-handed yataghan rose like an executioner’s axe.
Jatal stormed abreast and swung his sabre, which rebounded ringing as if he’d hammered a stone pillar. Then he was past, his arm hanging utterly numb. His sabre swung dangling from its leather wrist-strap. He yanked one-handed on Ash’s reins to curve outward and away, meaning to come round for another pass. Behind came the smash of lances impacting. Wood snapped and burst as charges hit home on the armoured giants. Jatal straightened in his saddle to scan the jammed press of humanity that was the roadway. Some few lancers remained trapped within, but far fewer than before. Even as he watched, a number fell, dragged from their saddles by countless grasping hands to disappear screaming and flailing into the horde.
He glimpsed a Saar lancer charging a yakshaka and the giant’s broad yataghan striking the mount’s neck to nearly sever it in one massive blow. Rider and mount fell in a tangle of snapping bones and thrown dirt. Elsewhere the giants actually shouldered aside horses that came too close, or reached out and grasped legs or tack to tear riders from their mounts as they passed. But for all that, many now reeled impaled on hafts of wood that stood from them like bizarre decorations.
Yet are any down? I see none. But they are too few. Less than a hundred all told, I should guess. We will grind them down.
He circled his tingling and aching right arm above his head to encourage the column and continued on round to complete the flying circle. Ahead, a lance stood from the ground next to a fallen knight. Jatal leaned far over on his left and reached for it. He snatched it in passing and tucked it under his arm. The crash of hooves announced a rider closing with him: it was Ganell on a massive black stallion. The big man sported a shattered lance that, laughing his battle glee, he raised to salute Jatal.
‘They are impossible to miss!’ he bellowed, grinning.
Jatal waved him on. Ganell saluted again and charged off, his immense mount pounding the earth.
A great chorus of horrifying screams sounded then and Jatal peered round. It came from the throats of that surging mass of compressed humanity and so full of despair and terror was it that it turned his flesh cold. Even as he watched, a swath of the mass fell, mowed down by some unseen contagion that rolled on to strike a section of the Adwami column. These riders and their mounts fell as welclass="underline" the horses threw back their heads and tumbled as if mattocked. Their riders rocked backwards as if struck, their robes and armour immediately stained red, and they fell limp.
A portion of the field had now been wiped empty of any standing living being but for one. This single figure sent an atavistic shiver down Jatal’s spine: he stood alone in his long blood-spattered mail, his bastard sword red to the hilts. The Warleader. He extended a mail-clad hand, pointing to some hidden foe. Then he charged.
Now Jatal had to know. Had to find out. Who was this man that the Thaumaturgs’ witchery should not affect him? And why was it that their curse should fall just where he was standing? Jatal urged Ash round the clamouring press to follow.
At the swath of fallen corpses Ash suddenly reared as if terrified. He snorted and shook his head, his eyes rolling whitely. He refused to advance despite Jatal’s commands. Not wanting to waste any more time fighting his mount, Jatal slid off the saddle and left him there, his reins hanging free. As a trained warhorse he could defend himself.
Some feeling had returned to his hand and he clenched it and shook it as he went. The fallen rabble infantry lay thick here, so thick it was hard to avoid them. The ground was wet and slick with fluids. When he did step on a corpse it gave sickeningly, like a yielding half-full sack of water. It was as if the flesh had been pulverized, reduced to spongy fat. From this cleared swath he had a good view of the battlefield. Ahead, a knot of resistance revealed an inner cordon of yakshaka guarding a circle of Thaumaturg mages at the centre of the formation. Some few Adwami lancers who had forged to the middle assaulted the yakshaka there. As did the Warleader. Somehow he had won through to the Thaumaturgs themselves and there he wreaked bloody slaughter. Jatal ran for him.
On his way he stepped over two fallen yakshaka warriors. Both had suffered astonishing wounds: an arm severed, a torso slashed through from collarbone to ribs revealing its layers of stone armour, bone and fibrous flesh oozing clear fluid. Who was this Warleader to deliver such blows?