Then there was an uneasy stillness, and he could feel his body being fought over by other wills. Slowly and fitfully the fearful sensation passed away and, as he recovered, his gaze was drawn to Oslang and the Cadwanwr. They were standing motionless. He galloped across to them.
‘Can you hold them?’ he shouted to Oslang above the din of the fighting.
Oslang turned to him, his eyes distant. He nodded slightly. Loman wanted to say more, but felt again his impotence in this battle within a battle. ‘Fight the army, Loman,’ Oslang said as if reading his mind. His voice was faint, but not weak.
As Loman turned to leave, Oslang spoke again. Lo-man had to lean forward to catch the words. ‘They are here,’ the Cadwanwr said. ‘The Guardians. Such consciousness as they have, is with us. Go now.’ There was great strain in his voice, but also an unusual strength-triumph almost.
Loman seized a nearby messenger. ‘Send to all the companies that the Uhriel are held and that the Guardians are among us.’
He returned to his companions and looked at the damage that had been wrought by the Uhriel’s attack. It was considerable. The phalanx had lost some of its cohesion and had been broken at two points. He could see frantic hand-to-hand combat occurring as the infantry sought to beat back the incursion. The Muster too had been disarrayed by the attack and though they had not broken off contact, their advance had slowed considerably and they were beginning to suffer casualties in the mud-spattered melee where their mobility and power were less effective.
Break off, Urthryn, he thought. Pull back and use your archers against their infantry. We can’t match them blow for blow.
The thought turned him to his right where the cav-alry should have been assailing the enemy’s left wing with arrow storms to prevent them moving round and surrounding the attacking infantry. But they too had been thrown into confusion by the Uhriel’s brief attack and though they were recovering quickly, they them-selves were being threatened by the huge mass of the now advancing left wing.
As he watched, the fear that had haunted Loman ever since the first Mandroc attacks on their night camps, returned to him in full vigour.
It was only by turning the momentum of a large army against itself that a smaller one could hope to prevail. And yet while the discipline of the Mandrocs was less even than that of the Morlider, and the slaughter that they were suffering would have broken a normal army and sent them crashing over one another in rout, this was not happening. Certainly, sections of them were panicking and turning to flee through their own, but the majority were standing their ground. They would have to be cut down one at a time-and they took some killing.
Loman felt the strange stirring deep within him again.
Then it erupted to fill him like a living thing. A ter-rible dark knowledge, hung about with raging, soul-shaking anger at the horror he was having to create. The Mandrocs would be put to flight only by the face of a will, an intention, more terrible, more inexorable, than that of their god and His servants.
He turned to the elite squadron around him. The two Goraidin, Yengar and Olvric were either side of him. Helmed and grim, he knew they saw what he saw and assessed it as he did.
Olvric drew his sword as if anticipating Loman’s order.
Yengar closed his eyes briefly and tightened his mouth, then he too drew his sword.
Loman looked at the others, his eyes cold and frightening. ‘My friends,’ he said. ‘We are His creatures now. If we are to be ourselves again we can be nothing less. Will you ride with me to cut out the heart of this monster He has sent against us?’
He waited for no reply, but turned and urged his horse forward. There was a great roar from behind him and he felt his companions closing behind him in a tight wedge formation as his horse began to gather speed.
He was aware of the horse beneath him, and the wind, and the cold, tainted rain on his face. He was aware of the whole battle as if he were flying high above it, like Gavor, and yet he was present at every frighten-ing, fearful, part of it; he was the hardened High Guard trooper counting his arrows and picking a target as he controlled his horse with his legs; he was the bewildered carving apprentice with rain in his eyes, gripping his pike and desperately keeping station with his friends, though his feet were slipping in the mud and his world was filled with the pounding of his heart; he was the unhorsed Muster rider repeatedly hacking a screaming Mandroc until it was still and then treading on its face to pull his sword free as he called desperately to his horse. He was their will and he was aware of them all.
But above all he was aware of His presence, watch-ful, malign, and patient.
You in your turn, you demon, came the thought through his unbridled rage.
Suddenly there were other riders ahead of and around him: Muster riders. Seeing his charge, some of the rearguard squadrons had been drawn inexorably after him-‘Use your judgement… it will be the same as mine.’ Now they were shepherding and guiding him.
‘We’ll carry you through, commander,’ came a voice from somewhere, and for a moment Loman was at one with the heart of the Muster; understood the bond between these wild-eyed riders and their wild-eyed horses; revelled in the straining sinews, the flying manes, the earth-shaking thunder of their hooves.
Then he was Loman the smith again, wielding the terrible tool he had forged to fill this terrible need.
And finally he was Loman the man again, as the Muster carried him into and over the Mandrocs who had rushed forward to protect the Uhriel from this onslaught.
Loman saw them flailing under the hooves of the horses, then abruptly the charge was over and he was part of a floundering, tumultuous mass of rearing horses and slashing blades. His horse lost its footing and fell heavily. Loman’s own fall was softened by the bodies that he landed on, but his sword bounced from his hand.
He curled up and rolled over to avoid the stamping hooves and the momentum of his roll carried him to his feet in long-practiced manner. His two open hands followed the movement, driving upwards under the chin of a Mandroc in front of him. As the creature fell, Loman seized the axe it was holding and, spinning round, swung it into another approaching from his right.
The axe embedded itself in the Mandroc’s side and Loman made no effort to relinquish it as the howling creature staggered back. A horse jostled him and he was aware of a high-pitched female shriek as a sword blade scythed past him to beat down a spear point driving towards him.
The Mandroc holding the spear towered over Lo-man, but the woman’s blow had unbalanced it and, seizing the descending shaft, Loman caught the creature’s momentum and sent it hurtling through the air to bring down several others as it landed.
He saw riders attempting to close about him but they were drawn away by their own needs. Two Mandrocs charged him.
He swung the spear round and one fell with its throat cut by a short, flicking, lunge, while the other crashed to the sodden ground as it moved back to avoid another lunge only to have the spear swing over its head and sweep down to take its legs from under it. Loman finished it with a single blow.
A backward thrust sent a third reeling and a dread-ful thrust sent the spear clear through a wildly charging fourth. As the dying creature fell forward, it slithered down the shaft, and the bloody spearhead rose to the vertical like an obscene plant before falling slowly to the ground.
Loman glanced round as he bent down to seize a long sword lying nearby. Several of his companions were fighting on foot; the Goraidin and the Helyadin with their terrible and strangely beautiful precision; the Muster riders, as savage, but less assured, in small self-protecting groups until they could remount or ride double. The majority, however, were still mounted and were forcing back the Mandrocs with terrible slaughter; swords and axes rose and fell against the grey sky and skeins of blood and gore flew up to join the incessant tumbling rain spattering down onto the mounds of dead and wounded.