“Stand firm!” cried Ironthumb.
Now the dwarves hacked and chopped in tight formation in the middle of a devastated human camp. A thousand men rushed against their left, met by the sharp clunk of crossbows and a volley of steel-tipped death. Hundreds fell, pierced by the missiles, and others turned to flee.
Swords met axes in five thousand duels to the death. The dwarves fought with courage and discipline, holding their ranks tight. They maimed and killed with brutal efficiency, but they were well matched by the courageous humans who pressed them in such great numbers.
But it was those numbers that would have to tell the tale. Slowly Dunbarth’s force contracted into a great ring. Amid the cries and the clanging and the shouting and screaming, Dunbarth slowly realized the tactical situation. The dwarven legion was surrounded.
24
Kith-Kanan watched the courageous stand of the dwarves with a lump of admiration burning in his throat. Dunbarth’s magnificent charge had taken the pressure off the elves at the gate, and now Kencathedrus’s force could surge forward again, expanding their perimeter against the distracted humans. Attacked from two sides, the Army of Ergoth wavered and twitched like a huge but indecisive beast set upon by a swarm of stinging pests. Great masses of human foot soldiers stood idle, waiting for orders while their comrades perished in desperate battles a few hundred yards away.
But now a sense of purpose seemed to settle across the humans. The tens of thousands of horses had been saddled. The riders, especially the light horsemen of General Giarna’s northern wing, had reached their steeds and were ready for battle.
Unlike the humans on foot, however, the cavalry did not race piecemeal into the fray, setting themselves up for defeat. Instead, they collected into companies and regiments and finally into massive columns. The riders surged around the outside of the melee, gathering and positioning themselves for one crucial charge.
The elves of the sortie force could save themselves by a quick return to the fortress. The dwarves, however, were isolated amid the wreckage of the south camp and had no such fallback. Lacking pikes, they would be virtually helpless against the onslaught Giarna was almost ready to unleash.
Kith-Kanan turned to Anakardain, who had remained at his side throughout the battle. “Now! Give the signal!” commanded the general. The elven mage pointed a finger toward the sky. “Exceriate! Pyros, lofti!” he cried.
Instantly a crackling shaft of blue light erupted from his pointing hand, hissing upward amid a trail of sparks. Even in the bright sunlight, the bolt of magic stood out clearly, visible to all on the battlefield. And, Kith devoutly hoped, to those who waited some twenty miles away—waited for this very signal. For several minutes after the flare, the battle raged, unchecked. Nor was there any sign that might alter this, though Kith-Kanan kept his eyes glued to the eastern horizon. The sun hung midway between that horizon and the zenith of noon, though it seemed impossible that the battle had raged for barely three hours.
Now the human cavalry galloped from the pastures, an impressive mass of horsemen under the tight control of a skilled commander. They surged around the trampled encampment, veering toward the embattled dwarves. Finally Kith-Kanan, still staring to the east, saw what he had been looking for: a line of tiny winged figures, a hundred feet above the ground and heading fast in this direction. Sunlight glinted from shiny steel helms and sparkled from deadly lance heads.
“The charge—sound it again!” barked the elven general to his trumpeter. Another blare sounded across the field, and for a moment, the momentum of battle paused. Humans looked upward in surprise. Their officers, in particular, were puzzled by the command. The elven and dwarven troops, hard pressed now, seemed to be in no position to execute an offensive.
“Again—the charge!”
Again and again the call brayed forth.
Kith-Kanan watched the Windriders as the soaring line approached nearer and nearer, within two or three miles of the field. The elven general picked up his shield and checked to see that his sword hung loosely in his scabbard.
“Take over the command,” Kith told Parnigar, at the same time grabbing the reins of Arcuballis and stepping to the griffon’s side.
The Wildrunner captain stared at his general. “Surely you’re not going out there! We need you here. Your plan is working! Don’t jeopardize it now!” Kith shook his head, casting off the arguments. “The plan has a life of its own now. If it fails, sound the recall and bring the elves back into the fortress. Otherwise, continue to give them support from the archers on the walls—and be ready to bring the rest of them out if the humans start to break.”
“But, General!” Parnigar’s next objections died away as Kith-Kanan swung into his high leather saddle. Obviously he would not be deterred from his actions.
“Good luck to you,” finished the captain, grimly looking over the field where thousands of humans still surged in attack.
“Luck has been with us so far,” Kith replied. “May she stay with us just for a little longer.”
Now the Windriders, still flying in their long, thin ranks, slowly nosed into shallow dives. They hadn’t yet been sighted by the humans on the ground, who had no reason to expect attack from the air.
Again the bugler brayed his charge. Arcuballis sprang from the tower, his powerful wings carrying Kith-Kanan into line with the other Windriders. At this cue, the griffons shrieked their harsh challenge, a jarring noise that cut cleanly through the chaos of the battle. Talons extended, beaks gaping, they howled downward from the heavens.
The whole pulse of the battle ceased as the shocking vision swept lower. Men, elves, and dwarves alike gaped upward.
Cries of alarm and terror swept through the human ranks. Units of men who had until now maneuvered in tightly disciplined formations suddenly scattered into uncontrolled mobs. The shadows of the griffons passed across the field, and again the beasts shrilled their savage war cries.
If the reaction by the humans to the sudden attack was dramatic and pronounced, the effect upon the horses was profound. At the first sound of the approaching griffons, all cohesion vanished from the cavalry units. Horses bucked and pitched, whinnied and shrieked.
The Windriders passed over the entire battlefield a hundred feet above the ground. Occasionally a human archer had the presence of mind to launch an arrow upward, but these missiles always trailed their targets by great distances before arcing back to earth, to land as often as not among the human ranks. Elven archers along the walls of Sithelbec showered their stunned opponents with renewed volleys as their captains sensed the battle’s decisive moment.
“Again—once back, and we’ll take to the ground,” Kith-Kanan cried, edging Arcuballis into a dive. The unit followed, and each griffon tucked its left wing, diving steeply and turning sharply to the left.
The creatures swung through a hundred-and-eighty-degree arc, losing about sixty feet of height. Now the cries of the elven riders joined those of the griffons as they raced over the human army. Bugles blared from the fortress walls and towers and from the ranks of the sortie force. Throaty dwarven cheers erupted from Dunbarth’s veterans, and the legion of Thorbardin quickly broke its defensive position, charging into the panicked humans surrounding them.
The elves of the sortie force, too, charged through the ditch into the humans who had been pressing them with such intensity. Columns of elves burst from the open gates of Sithelbec, reinforcing their comrades.
Kith-Kanan selected a level field, a wide area of pasture between the western and southern human camps, for a landing site and brought the griffons to earth there. His first target would be the brigade of armored knights that were struggling to regain control of their mounts.