Jaryd thrust and crashed his way through infantry ranks, men giving way in panic, others falling flat to escape the reach of his sword, only to be trampled underfoot. On this left side of the Dhemerhill Valley, only cavalry had attacked. Now they pierced the thin and wavering lines of Bacosh soldiers toward the Ipshaal like a dagger through the heart.
He yelled in fury as some soldiers ahead were slow to run clear and barrelled into them, his horse bounding for footing, knocking through several, trampling another. Arrows zipped past, talmaad mixed with the Lenay ranks behind, shooting fleeing soldiers in the back. Ahead, now visible across a final stretch of grass, was the Ipshaal. Enemies parted before it, and he nearly laughed at the ease of it, this astonishing victory, against such overwhelming odds.
The Lenay cavalry reached the bank in their tens and then hundreds, and wheeled. More hundreds poured in as Bacosh soldiers parted on either side. Damon's noble friends were whooping and yelling as though the war was over. Damon, Jaryd saw, merely stood his horse upon the bank, and looked along the river in either direction.
Along each bank was an endless sea of men. Further up-and downriver, entire armies were barely even aware they had been attacked. Jaryd's joy died upon his lips, and the look that Damon gave him was wary.
“We can't hold here,” he said. “We can't push in either direction along the river. The forces in the other direction will move in and cut us off from the valley. We'll be trapped. We must withdraw.”
“Withdraw?” Jaryd didn't like the sound of that. Damon was often grim and worried-this seemed like capitulation. More arrows zipped through the air, only these ones were incoming. Archers in the surrounding ranks were organising. “Look, let's at least clear the hill in front of Sasha's bluff….”
“There's no room. They were thin before the valley mouth but if we press them tighter along the riverbank they'll have nowhere to retreat to and we'll get stuck….”
“Their disadvantage, surely!” Jaryd protested.
“And ours when we can't make it back to the valley! We had a good run, we killed a lot of them and made them wary, let's get back before our triumph turns and bites us.”
“Surely we can…”
A whistling buzz interrupted them, like a swarm of wasps, followed by rapid thudding, and further across the grass a horse was smashed into the ground like a bug. Then another two, and a rider clubbed from the saddle by something big and fast.
“Ballistas!” shouted Damon. “Their artillery is trained on us!”
“Dammit,” Jaryd muttered, spinning his horse to stare up the riverside once more, searching for the source of it. “It'll be a few hundred paces up that way, if we can just…”
A flaming ball came through the air directly before him-they were out of range from Ilduuri artillery on the bluff, so it could only be enemy fire.
“Hellfire!” someone yelled. It hit the fields further from the river, riders scattering, not so concentrated there to be affected. Two more shots came, one hitting a tree and engulfing it, the other erupting near the bank of the Dhemerhill.
Upon the opposite side of the Dhemerhill, more flaming balls were arcing through the air. These were coming from further up the Ipshaal bank to the north. And these were heading straight for the Lenay infantry.
“That's it,” said Damon. “We're getting out before we get slaughtered.” He turned and galloped back the way they'd come, waving his sword and yelling for men to form up on him. “Get me a trumpeter and get our infantry back! Full retreat!”
Sasha swore, watching the artillery land. Great plumes of fire rose from amidst the Army of Lenayin's ranks. Likely it was killing surviving Bacosh soldiers in there as well, but the thought did not comfort.
“Get them out of there, Damon,” she muttered. “It was a great victory, now fall back and live to fight another one.”
Here on the near side of the Dhemerhill, Lenay cavalry were indeed falling back. That would be Damon himself, though she could not make him out. Artillery fire was landing amidst the horses here as well, though less effective on the open ground. It was coming from just before her left flank.
She wheeled and rode fast along her lines, where Ilduuri men who had been cheering now stood and watched with grim concern. They knew how fast hellfire artillery could turn any exposed and tightly clustered army to cinders. Soon she reached a spot on the harshly contested left flank where black grass still burned from llduuri artillery and piles of charred corpses smouldered, while others lay strewn underfoot, having fought right up and even past the Ilduuri shieldline. To her left, amidst the trees, wounded Ilduuris were treated by comrades, and a small number of dead lay silent.
At the bottom of the slope, and perhaps fifty paces beyond, she could see the Regent's captured artillery. Great arms swung from the backs of huge wheeled wagons, pulled by large teams of bullocks. With each crank and crash, they hurled another flaming projectile downriver. Her position was safe from them up here; neither catapults nor even ballistas could reach this altitude from that position. But the Army of Lenayin was another matter.
“Give me a thousand,” said Arken at her side, “and I can get them.”
Sasha stared at him. His return stare was deadly serious. “There's still a lot of men halfway down this slope,” she pointed out. “You'll have to fight through them.”
“With downhill momentum it's no problem,” said the confident Ilduuri.
“Then after you hit them, and destroy the artillery, you have to run back up here under fire, in full armour, with half the Regent's army on your heels.”
“We are the Ilduuri Steel,” said Arken, blue eyes blazing. “You see how we fight, we run up mountains in full armour every day before breakfast.” It was true, they did. “In Ilduur, and here today, you have shown me the greatness of a Lenay warrior. Today we shall show you the greatness of the Ilduuri warrior.”
Men nearby who overheard him gave a bloodthirsty yell of agreement.
Sasha thought about it, for the short moment that was all she had. She could not afford to lose a thousand Ilduuri here, and it was certainly possible that if a thousand ran down this hill, barely a handful would return. But she and Kessligh had both agreed that if the Regent's artillery remained intact for the entire fight, their chances of final victory were slim. Even now the artillery threatened to turn Lenayin's great triumph into carnage. This was the chance she had to take.
“Do it,” she said. “Write me a war tale, Arken. Write me a war tale that warriors will tell around their firesides in Lenayin, of how the Ilduuri Steel is feared by its enemies.”
Rhillian dashed across carnage, her horse bounding and skittering to avoid bodies underfoot, some still moving. Most of them were Bacosh men, but now there was artillery falling all around. Eruptions of flame engulfed unsuspecting men, and ballista fire thumped steadily to the ground with a sound like giant hailstones, here and there taking a man with it.
She found a Lenay officer beneath a banner and raced to his side. “Get your men out of here!” she yelled at him. “Sound a retreat before you lose half your force!”
“We are winning!” the officer shouted back defiantly. “A few cowardly fireballs won't stop us now.”
“Fucking fool!” Rhillian shouted. “They're just getting their range in, you're losing hundreds of men even now!” Ballista fire hit very close. Then a nearby horse was hit, straight through the head, crushing its skull and upending it into a somersault.
“You are serrin, you do not command here!” Looking about, Rhillian saw he didn't have a trumpeter anyway. Nearby she spotted another group beneath a flag, and galloped toward them instead. She was halfway there when they disappeared beneath a wall of flame. She threw up her hands and her horse reared. The next moment, she was on the ground.