Just as planned, hundreds of the Vingaard light cavalry reappeared, abruptly spilling over the crest. With lances leveled, they bore down in a charge toward the wagons containing the massive bombards, whooping and shouting like wild men. Also as planned, the men of the Crown Army reacted quickly to defend their precious weapons, forming a three-rank line and extending their wings to the right and left in a sweeping, encircling barrier that stood between the charging horsemen and the precious guns.
That was when the light horsemen pulled back their mounts and milled about defiantly, just out of arrow range from the column’s defenders.
Blayne looked at Wallace. “I don’t think we’ll get a better chance than this,” he declared.
The red-robed wizard nodded in agreement.
“Light those brands!” cried young Lord Kerrigan. “We ride against the bombards!”
In the next moment, all two hundred of his men had touched flames to their pitch-soaked arrows, nocking the weapons onto the strings of their bows. They spilled out of the ravine in no particular formation, each man riding as fast as he could, determined to get off as many shots as possible. The wind snatched at the flaming arrows but only served to fan the small blazes. Blayne raised his bow and guided his horse with his knees, directing his charge at the closest of the three great weapons.
Amazingly, the Crown soldiers didn’t at first notice the surprise attack. So determined were they to hold back the lancers on the north side of the road that Blayne’s party had galloped forward for ten or twelve breaths without drawing so much as a warning shout. Finally, a commander, looking over his shoulder, spotted the flank attack and bellowed a sharp alert.
By then, the attackers were closing fast. The Crown companies were out of position, the footmen scrambling between the wagons, trying to form a wall of spears. The confused infantry effectively blocked their own cavalry from crossing the road, and the defensive line had to form only a few feet from the wagons. Mounted archers would have no trouble getting close enough.
Red Wallace bounced along on a fleet mare, readying a spell that-Blayne trusted-ought to destroy at least one of the bombards. The wizard would maneuver toward the last of the massive weapons, while the riders would concentrate their fire against the first two. The horses flowed across the ground, closing to five hundred feet, then three hundred feet.
The spearmen presented a bristling line, standing barely twenty yards in front of the road and the wagons. Blayne shouted, “Halt!” and the riders pulled up, still at a fair remove from the enemy footmen. The Crown cavalry was streaming to the rear, looking for a way to countercharge, but the delay was fatal.
“Fire!” shouted Kerrigan, launching his first arrow at the towering bulk of the first bombard. The target loomed like a mountain, impossible to miss-but somehow the sputtering arrow, trailing a column of smoke, wiggled awkwardly through the air and fell harmlessly to the ground in front of the spearmen trying to protect the bombards. Cursing, Blayne reached for another missile and struggled to light the pitch while his horse pranced beneath him.
But there were at least two hundred flaming arrows launched in the first volley, and a few of them did find the range. A pair smacked into the side of one of the bombard haulers, the impact driving the burning pitch deep into its wooden planks. Several more landed in the beds of the wagons, while a few of the near misses landed close enough to the big oxen hauling the guns that they set the creatures to bellowing and pitching in their traces.
Close by the young lord, Red Wallace had his spell ready and launched a bolt of lightning from one fingertip. The explosive charge shot through the air with a hiss and crackle, searing through the line of spearmen and striking the side of the wagon with a blast. Immediately that heavy bed was shattered into timbers and traces, one sturdy wheel wobbling away as flames consumed the wreckage.
Smoke was rising from many of the wagons, including the two bearing the remaining bombards. Another wagon, struck by accident, exploded in flame, spewing a huge column of smoke.
“We hit their powder supply!” Blayne cried exultantly. He released one then another arrow, which vanished into the smoke and fire. In any event, flames rose from all the wagons, and by now the Crown cavalry had begun to spill around the mess, hundreds of foes, lances leveled, thundering toward the attacking Vingaard riders.
“Pull back!” cried Blayne Kerrigan.
His troops needed no further encouragement. They spun their horses away, back toward the ravine and the tangled pathways of the Southwood Forest. By the time they vanished into the gap, the weary riders of the Crown Army had fallen far behind.
“What in the name of the Abyss is going on back there?” Jaymes snarled, spinning his horse and staring in amazement at the column of smoke rising from the rear of the column. In the next instant, he put spurs to the steed and went racing back against the line of march, his horse dancing along the side of the road.
“Templar, follow me!” he ordered, coming on the Clerist Knight and his small company of priest-warriors. He didn’t wait to see that they obeyed, but continued racing headlong to the rear.
The damage was apparent while he was still a mile away. At least one wagon had exploded into bits, and many others were burning. He saw the tail end of the Vingaard column disappearing into the woods and forgot about them-at least for the time being.
There would be time enough, later, for the enemy to feel his wrath.
He had to save the bombards, if at all possible. But by the time he reached the scene, he could see that one of the great barrels was enveloped by flames, and that the fire covered the wooden body of the great carriage supporting the gun. Even as the emperor watched, the wagon collapsed, and the timbers forming the bore of the great barrel started to blacken. A second bombard lay on its side, cracked and broken-by some kind of magic, he suspected.
The third and last cannon was wreathed in smoke, but the wagon was not yet engulfed by flames, not yet lost. Templar, his own horse lathered, galloped up behind Jaymes, and the emperor pointed angrily at the lone bombard in its cradle of vulnerable wood, just starting to catch fire.
“Put that out!” he ordered.
The Clerist immediately began casting a spell. Jaymes watched soundlessly, his teeth clenched and his jaw aching, as a cloud quickly formed above the burning wagon. In no time a steady rain began to fall, and a few moments later the flames had been reduced to sizzling, blackened embers. The lone remaining bombard had survived, essentially undamaged.
“My lord!” cried General Dayr, coming up to the site on a frothing horse. “What happened?”
“Happened?” retorted the emperor coldly. He thought for a moment, his eyes glaring at the dark forest where the attackers had withdrawn.
“What happened is that the fate of Vingaard has been sealed,” he declared before turning his back on the damage and riding back toward the head of his army.
CHAPTER NINE
Selinda stared at the door to her room, the door that was almost constantly closed, tightly locked, and always carefully guarded, on the orders of her husband, the emperor. He was gone from the city, but his presence, his authority, seemed to linger everywhere-in the walls surrounding her, amid the guards who were the only people she saw, in the very air she breathed. She found herself turning quickly around several times each day, checking against the strong sensation he was in the room, watching her.
She wore the ring of teleportation from Coryn the White on her finger, nervously touching it as she looked at the door again. Selinda had been wearing the ring, staring at it, thinking about it, for a number of days. But she had been so worried about the unseen presence of the emperor that she had done nothing yet to activate the magical circlet.