He looked again at the disposition of the Orthlundyn forces. He could have done no better, he saw. Loman’s command had been sound and shrewd but…
Reinforcements! What other forces still lay on those distant islands?
A horse-pulled sled galloped past, swaying omi-nously. It was one of several that the Orthlundyn had made for carrying supplies about the battlefield, and it was stacked high with bundles of arrows. Riding the horse was a young boy.
Drawn from his thoughts by the sled’s seemingly reckless progress, Hawklan pointed.
‘Who…?’ he began.
‘He’s from the village,’ said one of the Helyadin. ‘Fendryc’s village. There’s a few knocking about. They just turned up and started helping with the horses.’
Hawklan swore. The Riddin village with its popula-tion of the too old and the too young left to tend the surrounding farms! The Riddinvolk had thrown their every able resource into meeting this enemy. Now even the frail were stepping forward.
How could he do less? Now, more clearly than ever he saw that he too must commit his last resource to try to tilt this battle if the Morlider were bringing in reinforcements.
He set the calculation aside, and his resolve, buried by the sudden burden of Ynar Aesgin’s fears, reasserted itself.
Turning to the Helyadin he said quietly, ‘String your bows, friends. We’re going to stop that Morlider left wing.’
Despite himself, Isloman expressed the immediate response of the group. ‘It’s not possible,’ he said, his voice full of alarm. ‘There’s not remotely enough of us.’
Hawklan looked at him for a long moment and then smiled. ‘Since when is the possible so easily measured, carver?’ he asked. Then he patted Isloman’s arm affectionately. ‘Tirke, Athyr, keep our quivers filled. We’ve a battle to win.’
Turning Serian, he began walking towards the or-dered ranks of advancing Morlider. Except for those trusted with the protection of the two Cadwanwr, the others rode after him.
As they moved forward, Hawklan glanced upwards. The sky had been silent since the lights and thunder that had panicked the cavalry, but as he looked at the grey, mottled clouds he felt a strange sense of foreboding.
What extremity had the Drienwr been in to have reached out, unknowing, to seize him thus? He remem-bered how Andawyr had appeared before him as he sat drowsing in the library at Anderras Darion and in that dusty sunlit storeroom in Vakloss. But here he had been about to enter battle.
He set the questions aside. If even Andawyr did not truly understand how such things had happened, how could anyone else? But still the foreboding persisted and the lingering regret that perhaps yet again he had turned away the Drienvolk when they had sought his aid. That he could have done no other in such circum-stances offered him little consolation.
‘Here,’ he said, reining Serian to a halt. ‘Dismount. Line abreast. Pick your targets and take your time. If they break and charge us, maintain your aimed fire into the leading ranks until my command, then remount and move down line.’
The Helyadin obeyed Hawklan’s order in silence, and their flimsy line stretched itself out in front of the dark mass of the Morlider and their waving pikes with the easy leisure of companions about to enjoy an afternoon’s friendly archery practice.
Their assault did not have the immediate morale-breaking impact of the massed volleys that had shattered the Morlider’s flank guards, but the Helyadin were expert shots and almost every arrow struck its target. Very soon a length of the approaching wing was in complete disarray.
Eventually, as Hawklan had envisaged, a section of the assailed infantry began to charge forward in desperate fury in an attempt to end this peculiarly dreadful attack.
He watched them come. ‘Keep firing,’ he said unhur-riedly. ‘Take your time. Three more shots at least. Aim for those still holding their stations.’
Nearer.
‘One more.’
Nearer.
‘Mount up.’
And the Helyadin were gone, leaving the charging Morlider to hurl axes, swords, and abuse after them with equal futility.
Twice more the group reformed and attacked the relentlessly advancing line, doing great harm.
As they pulled away for the third time, Hawklan looked at the frayed and straggling line that had marked their assault.
It was not enough. The whole wing had slowed a little as a result of the attack, but much of it was still intact. The Helyadin’s attack was having an effect quite disproportionate to their numbers, but they were still very few.
For the first time that day, Hawklan’s mind turned to Agreth. A single Muster squadron could smash the unprotected flanks and rear of the Morlider line.
Had the Riddinwr reached an outpost that might carry his news swiftly south? Had he been able to draw away the Muster from whatever treachery had led them there? Despite himself, Hawklan found his eyes looking to the misty horizon in the hope of seeing the quivering movement that would be riders approaching.
But all was still.
‘Riders.’ The urgent voice was Dacu’s. Hawklan took in a sharp expectant breath. But Dacu was not pointing to the horizon, he was pointing to another group of riders emerging from behind the Morlider line. Fewer than before, but galloping again towards the Cadwanwr and their small guard.
Still attacking the heart, Agrasson, Hawklan thought.
Quickly he dispatched half the Helyadin to intercept them. ‘Don’t close with them,’ he shouted. ‘Shoot the horses, then the men. I want no survivors. Then get back here as quickly… ’
His orders froze in his throat as the foreboding he had felt before suddenly returned, though far worse, doubling and redoubling, as if a great power were descending from above to crush the whole loathsome field and all on it.
Then the sky ignited.
A dazzling incandescence flooded the two armies and the snow-covered arena with a light so bright that it seemed that no matter could stay its flow sufficiently to cast a shadow.
Yet even as hands rose to cover tormented eyes, there came a noise that swept such concerns into nothingness. It filled the sky and enfolded the battling peoples in an embrace so powerful that not one there could hear his own screams. The swaying lines of pikes wavered and fell like corn before hail as Morlider and Orthlundyn alike tumbled to the ground vainly trying to avoid this overpowering and terrifying onslaught.
Hawklan fell forward and clasped his arms around Serian’s neck. Faint but sure, an inner light held firm amid the tumult within him and showed him that now above all times, the outcome of this battle lay in his hands.
He tightened his grip around Serian’s neck. His voice would not be heard, but the healer in him would reach the horse.
‘Hold, Serian,’ it said. ‘Listen to the sires within you who know me and who know the truth. This is the doom of another world not ours. Who rises first from this, carries the day. ’
The great horse reared and screamed unheard as its spirit fought against the fears that would have its body flee from this horror, but Hawklan entered into it and for a timeless moment the two sustained each other, moving beyond the light and the noise.
Then, as the dreadful brilliance lessened and be-came a shifting, ghastly, bloodstained iridescence, and the sound dwindled into a cascade of tumbling thunder-claps, Hawklan leapt down from Serian.
‘Quiet your own, before they recover their wits enough to flee,’ he shouted, then he ran among the stunned Helyadin, dragging them to their feet, staring into shocked eyes, slapping faces, thrusting unsteady forms on to equally unsteady horses, and roaring his will at all of them.
Two others were doing the same, he noted. One was Isloman; the great carver, though patently terrified, was unceremoniously dumping the Helyadin into their saddles. The second was Dacu. Fleetingly the memory returned to Hawklan of the great silence that had awakened him in the mountains and how it had so moved the Goraidin. ‘A gift to guide me forever,’ he had said. The memory eased his own pain in some way.