A company, a fifth of his battalion. Ferelsma sent them, of course.
The company had hardly left when Trumpko's trumpeters ordered his crossbowmen to begin firing again. This time at will. Again the trumpets called. Now kettledrums began beating a cadence. The rest of the hithik infantry started marching toward the box, seven-foot stabbing spears gripped in hands that were numb and clumsy with cold. From every side, they advanced toward the box, in broad ranks not a dozen feet apart. They'd stood stationary so long, and gotten so cold, they stumbled at first.
Now the dwarves began shooting back, their bolts launching like great flocks of focused and deadly swallows. And dwarven crossbowmen "had the eye"; hithik soldiers began falling. Again trumpets called. The drumbeat accelerated, and the advance speeded to a run. The troops began to shout, to ululate. The hithik lead ranks reached the dwarven box, and began to pile up despite the drumbeat. But the hithar showed no sign of breaking off and retreating. As the men before them died, those behind pressed forward.
Ferelsma watched, awed. "Ensorceled," he murmured. A chill passed over him that had nothing to do with the weather.
A courier arrived, a long-legged voitu. "Major," he said, "General Trumpko expects us to be attacked by mounted ylvin raiders. Be prepared to engage them on my order."
The major felt a sense of relief. The waiting was over. He sent two of his own couriers to notify his company commanders. Then his attention went back to the struggle. The box hadn't broken anywhere. Soldiers were clambering over bodies to get at the dwarves.
The communicator's hand gripped Ferelsma's arm. "They are coming!" he said. "Over there!"
Ferelsma peered where the voitu pointed. A force of cavalry was coming into sight over a low rise-several companies, perhaps a mile away. He snapped orders to his trumpeter. The man blew a short series of notes, and the battalion adjusted its ranks, orienting on the enemy. Then, with another series of notes, the major led his four remaining companies at a slow trot toward them, forming ranks for a charge as they went.
The enemy had stopped, and sat waiting as if to receive his charge passively. Uneasy, Ferelsma wondered what that meant.
As the distant cavalry started toward him, Macurdy halted his force. His earflaps were up, exposing his steel cap, given him by Finn Greatsword at Macurdy's last visit in the mountain. A cap powerfully spelled. From where he was, he couldn't see the infantry battle, but Blue Wing could. The bird was flying a hundred feet overhead, calling down an occasional observation.
Horgent, with the 2nd Cohort, still waited to the south, out of sight but ready.
Invisible beside Macurdy, Vulkan spoke. ‹I sense sorcery in use. Be aware.›
What the hell am I supposed to do about that? Macurdy thought testily.
There was no sign of monsters. The oncoming hithar were still at the trot. He barked an order, and his trumpeter blew. With Macurdy in the lead, the cohort started toward the enemy.
With his hithar a quarter mile into their approach trot, the "ylvin" cavalry still stood stationary in a column of fours. Perhaps, Ferelsma thought, they'll turn and run. His own men rode knee to knee now. Then, finally, the enemy started toward him a file at a time, dressing their files into battle ranks.
Only after several seconds more did Ferelsma realize the enemy's first rank held bows. It commenced the gallop early, well before the ranks that followed, and well before his own. Unsettled by this, Ferelsma ordered the charge before he might have. Reaching effective bow range, the enemy's lead rank loosed quick arrows, one, two, three, then peeled off to the sides, riding furiously, still shooting.
Meanwhile the rest of the ylvin ranks began the gallop. At the ranges involved, hithik losses had been modest, but his people had no time to reclose their ranks effectively.
They clashed. The thunder of hooves was mixed with shouts, the clash of sabers, screams of men and horses. Riders passed through enemy ranks, then circled back; or milled, locked in combat till one or the other fell. Stricken horses ran in circles, some trailing entrails, some with a rider still aboard.
Ferelsma found himself engaged with what was surely a rakutu, whose strong teeth grinned at him without humor. Treachery! Their blades locked at the hilts. The rakutu's strength lent desperation to Ferelsma's arm, but not enough. He felt himself pressed backward. A long knife flashed, and abruptly time slowed. The blade swept slowly, slowly toward him. Slowly his mouth opened, sound swelling his throat
… then the blade struck his abdomen, bursting through coat and underlying hauberk.
Time was normal again. He was slammed backward out of the saddle. One boot caught in a stirrup, and his horse cantered out of the melee. By the time it was clear, Ferelsma was dead.
Horgent's great raven called, not in Yuultal, but in a series of loud croaks. The sound could be heard a mile. It was the signal Horgent had been waiting for. His cohort was concealed in the largest draw the area had to offer; not very deep, but deep enough. He signaled with a guidon, and they rode out in six broad ranks. Ahead was a body of hithik infantry, facing away, toward the action, oblivious of the Tigers approaching behind them. Again the commander's guidon signaled, and the cohort speeded up.
At about a quarter mile, a hithu looked back and saw. The Tigers couldn't hear his cry, but they saw the milling, the spreading disorder. Horgent's trumpeter blew, and from their saddle boots, his Tigers drew their heavy compound bows, already strung. A hithik trumpet sounded. At eighty yards, Horgent's trumpeter answered, and stopping abruptly, the Tigers let arrows fly; drew and shot again. And again, rapidly, till each had fired half a dozen. Again Horgent's trumpeter blew, and his ranks split, half going east, half west.
The hithar's regimental commander didn't realize at first what Horgent intended. Then both wings of the Tiger cohort turned north. Again he misjudged. Only part of each wing dashed in on his flanks, and only to distract and harass. The rest charged on toward the struggle at the north side of the dwarves' defensive box.
The men fighting there never noticed. First arrows, then sabers took them from the rear. It snapped most of them from their focus, fixed initially by sorcery, then by fighting. The unexpected strike on their rear disoriented and panicked them.
Only then did they learn how quickly dwarves can move, the attacked becoming the attackers, scrambling with axes and spears over windrowed bodies.
General Trumpko and his staff were ensconced on their little knoll, protected by two companies of infantry. He'd watched the destruction of Ferelsma's command, and realized now the danger he was in. Personally. His trumpeter blew the order for the division to disengage and reassemble. His men were willing, and the enemy was content to feed on stragglers and fringes, away from the crossbow fire of Trumpko's reserves. In twenty minutes his mauled division was moving again. Northward now.
Macurdy didn't even try for a count of hithik bodies. It seemed to him, though, that five thousand was reasonable. Strongarm had roll taken of his dwarves. The number of dead or unaccounted for was 560-the missing mostly under piled-up hithar-and 1,334 significantly wounded, many unable to walk.
The dwarves made camp, and their healers applied their talents to the wounded, wishing they could do more. Still, Farside medics would have been impressed by their effectiveness. Other dwarves salvaged crossbow bolts from hithik corpses, to replenish their supply.
Macurdy sent Tigers out to round up what horses they could catch, and to bring up pack strings. Pack loads were rearranged, and some goods cached, to free up additional horses for transporting wounded. Dwarves don't ride well on full-sized horses; even mounting is difficult. But pack strings and ingenuity provided transportation for dwarven wounded, two per horse.