Gel-Ethlin strode to the rear, feeling his wet clothes clammy against his body. The twilight was deepening and he was obliged to look about for some moments before he caught sight of Kreet-Liss. He ran towards him and arrived just as the Deelguy went forward into their attack. The concerted, rhythmic cry of 'Bek-la Mowt!' Bek-la-Mowt!' was taken up along the whole line, but broke off in the centre as the Deelguy closed with the enemy. It was plain that the Ortelgans were ready to pay dearly to hold the gap they had made. Three times they repulsed the mercenaries, yelling as they stood astride the bodies of their fallen comrades. Many were brandishing swords and shields taken from the dead of the decimated Tonilda, and each time an enemy was cut down the Ortelgan opposing him would stoop quickly to snatch the foreign arms which he believed must be better than his own – though both, as like as not, had been forged from iron of Gelt.
Suddenly a fresh Beklan attack fell upon the Ortelgan right and again the steady, bearing cry of 'Bek-la Mowt!' rose above the surrounding clamour. Gel-Ethlin, who had been about to order Kreet-Liss to attack once more, was peering to It's left to make out what had happened, when someone plucked his sleeve. It was Shaltnekan. 'Those are my boys attacking them now, sir,' he said.
'Against orders!' cried Gel-Ethlin. 'What do you mean by it? Get back-'
'They're going to break in a moment, if I know anything about it, sir,' said Shaltnekan. 'Surely you won't stop us pursuing them now?' 'You'll do no such thing!' replied Gel-Ethlin.
'Sir,' said Shaltnekan, 'if we let them off the field in any sort of order, what's going to be said back in Bekla? We'll never live it down. They've got to be routed – cut to bits. And now's the time to do it, or they'll be off in the dark.'
The Ortelgans were running back out of the gap as Shaltnekan's attack drove in their right flank. Kreet-Liss and his men followed them, stabbing the enemy's wounded as they advanced. A few minutes later the original Beklan line was restored and Gel-Ethlin, peering, could make out to his left the gap where Shaltnekan's company had left their place. There could be no denying that it had been a fine stroke of initiative: and no denying, either, that there was a good deal of force in the argument that the enemy's escape, after the mauling they had suffered, would probably be ill-received in Bekla. To destroy them, on the other hand, would establish his reputation and silence any possible criticism on the part of Santil-ke-Erketlis.
The Beklan officers, obedient to orders, had halted their men on the original defensive line and the Ortelgans were streaming down the slope unpursucd, several supporting their wounded or carrying looted Beklan equipment As Gel-Ethlin watched them, a voice spoke from the ground at his feet. He looked down. It was the tenant lad from Kapparah's farm near Ikat He had raised himself on one elbow and was trying to staunch with his cloak a great gash in his neck and shoulder.
'Go on, sir, go on!' gasped the boy. 'Finish them offl I'll take a letter down to Ikat tomorrow, won't I, just like old times? God bless the lady, she'll give me a whole sackful of gold!'
He pitched forward on his face and two of Shaltnekan's men dragged him back behind the line. Gel-Ethlin, his mind made up, turned to the trumpeter.
'Well, Wolf,' he said, addressing the man by his nickname, 'no good you standing there doing nothing! Break ranks – general pursuit. And blow hard, so that everyone can hear it!'
The trumpet had hardly sounded before the various Beklan companies began racing down the slopes, those on the wings scattering widely and trying to turn inwards towards the road. Every man hoped to beat his comrades to the plunder – such as it might be. This was what they had marched through the wind for, withstood the attacks for, shivered obediently for in the rain. True enough, there would be little or nothing to take from these barbarians except their fleas, but a couple of slaves would fetch a good price in Bekla and there was always the sporting chance of a baron with gold ornaments, or even a woman among the baggage behind.
Gel-Ethlin ran too, among the foremost, his pennant-bearer on one side of him and Shaltnekan on the other. As they reached the foot of the slope and came close to the edge of the wood, he could see, among the trees, the Ortelgans once more forming line to meet them. Evidently they meant to go down fighting. For the first time he drew his sword, tie might as well strike a blow or two on his own account before the business was done.
From close at hand, somewhere inside the wood, there came a loud grinding, rumbling sound which grew nearer and changed to a smashing and splintering of wood and a clashing of iron. Immediately after, there sounded above all the tumult a savage roaring, like that of some huge beast in pain. Then the boughs burst apart in front of him and Gel-Ethlin stood rigid with horror, bereft of every feeling but panic fear. The ordinary course of things seen and comprehended; the senses, that five-fold frame of the world; the unthinking, human certainty of what can and cannot reasonably happen, upon which all rational living is based – these dissolved in an instant. If a rag-draped skeleton had come stalking out of the trees on bare, bony feet, invisible to all but himself, and made towards him with wagging head and grinning jaws, he could not have been more stupefied, more deeply plunged into terror and mental chaos. Before him, no more than a few yards away, there stood, more than twice as tall as a man, a beast which could have no place in the mortal world. Most like a bear it looked, but a bear created in hell to torment the damned by its mere presence. The cars were flattened like a cat's in rage, the eyes glimmered redly in the failing light and streaked, ochreous foam came frothing from between teeth like Deelguy knives. Over one shoulder – and this drove him almost mad with fear, for it proved that this was no earthly creature – it carried a great, pointed stake, dripping with blood. Blood, too, covered the claws curving from the one paw raised above its head as though in some horrible greeting of death. Its eyes – the eyes of a mad creature, inhabiting a world of cruelty and pain – looked down upon Gel-Ethlin with a kind of dark intelligence all too sufficient for its single purpose. Meeting that gaze, he let his sword drop from his hand; and as he did so the beast struck him with a blow that crushed his skull and drove his head down through his shoulders.
A moment later Shaltnekan fell across his body, his chest broken in like a smashed drum. Kreet-Liss, stumbling on the wet slope, made one thrust with his sword before his neck was ripped open in a fountain of blood. And this sword-thrust, wounding it, drove the creature to such a frenzy of murderous destruction that every man ran shrieking as it ploughed its way up the crowded slope, seeking whom to tear and destroy. The men on the wings, halted and crying out to learn what had happened, felt their bowels loosen at the news that the bear-god, more dreadful than any imagined creature from the nether wastes of fever and nightmare, had indeed appeared, and had recognized and killed of intent the General and two commanders.
From the wavering Ortelgan line there rose a triumphant shout. Kelderek, limping and staggering with exhaustion, was the first man to emerge from the trees, shouting 'Shardik! Shardik the Power of God!' Then, with yells of 'Shardik! Shardik!', which were the last sound in the ears of Ta-Kominion, the Ortelgans poured up the slope, hacking and thrusting anew through the broken Beklan centre. A few minutes afterwards Kelderek, Baltis and a score of others reached the mouth of the gorge beyond the ridge and, heedless of their isolation, faced about to hold it against any who might try to force an escape. Of Shardik, vanished into the falling darkness, there remained neither sight nor sound.